The Magazine Gesture

Yesterday I wrote about encouragement. I received such a positive response that I am “encouraged” to write more on this topic today. See how beautifully that works?

Today’s story illustrates that expressions of encouragement, support, and love need not come in fancy packages. They need not be spoken or written with eloquent speech or lavish word usage. They need not require enormous amounts of time, effort, or cost. They simply must come from the heart.

And this Hands Free Mama is learning more and more each day that simple is good.

And giving from one’s heart is on my list of what really matters.

Here is my story of how a bound collection of glossy pages became a symbol of encouragement and love, not just once, but many times over…

If you have read “Sunset Moments,” then you know that when my husband and I moved from Indiana to Florida, I experienced deep heartache for the familiar faces of family and friends back home.

Well, fortunately, that didn’t last forever. Shortly after that life-changing sunset, I met a friend.  Or as I referred to her in a poem I wrote to her years ago, (before Train used the term in the hit song), my “Soul Sister.”

We were both attending the party of a mutual friend. Within moments of arriving, we were drawn together like magnets.  Once we began chatting, we found that not only were we both new to the area, but we shared many interests.  The way we stood closely together bonding over hairstyles and homesickness, our husbands thought perhaps we were former high school friends or long-lost cousins.

I had not only found a friend, I had found a life-long friend. You know the kind of friend that despite just meeting, you feel like you have known all your life.

My friend was, and still is, extremely thoughtful. One of her little acts of kindness was collecting People magazines after she read them and setting them in a bag on my doorstep.

There was something uplifting about arriving home from a long day of teaching school children to find a bag full of delicious magazines beckoning me to relax and unwind. I instantly knew the evening ahead consisted of cozy pajamas, “Who Wore It Best,” and “Star Tracks.“ (This was before I had children of my own, as you probably already guessed by an evening of such leisure.)

But there was something more to the magazines than just the entertainment factor. It was the fact that they were there at all.  A bag of magazines does not magically appear on a doorstep. It only arrives because someone decided that instead of throwing the magazines in the recycling bin, she would save them, bag them, and drive them over to a friend’s house.

The meaning behind this gesture was clear:

Someone is thinking of me.

Someone loves me enough to bring a little happiness to my day.

I didn’t fully realize full the magnitude of the magazine gesture until we had to move again, this time to southern Alabama.

Again, I found myself in uncharted territory, not knowing a single soul. I vividly remember being lost as I tried to drive home, (this time with a three-year-old and a four-month-old strapped in the back seat), unable to read the street signs through my blurring tears. But unlike the Florida experience, a miraculous sunset did not provincially appear on the horizon to bring me hope.

During the first few months in our new home, I was very depressed. My husband wanted so badly to make me feel better. He so badly wanted things to be all right. I know with certainty that he spent hours and hours each day trying to figure out ways to bring light into the dark hole I was in.

I can almost imagine his line of thinking when he figured out this idea: Well, I can’t transplant her Florida friend here, so I will do the next best thing…People Magazine! And if one magazine can bring a smile to her face, just imagine what two will do. Yes, that’s it, I will throw in US Weekly, too!

Yes, my sweet husband, in his effort to bring me a little piece of what made Florida my happy home, ordered me not one, but two magazine subscriptions.

Every time the magazine arrived, I felt a little spark of comfort as it triggered fond memories of my friend and the way she delivered the visual delights to my door. And now there was an added spark; it was the fact that my husband put time, thought, and effort into this weekly treat for me.

The meaning behind this gesture was clear:

Someone is thinking of me.

Someone loves me enough to bring a little happiness to my day.

One short year later, my husband was promoted, and we moved again to the city in which we now reside. We moved into a community where many other “out-of-towners” live, which makes for a very friendly community. The same neighbors who welcomed us at our door with coffee cake, dinner, and well wishes also reached out lovingly as a surrogate family. I instantly had friends…and of course, two magazine subscriptions.

There were enough magazines to go around to several of my friends.  I loved presenting a paper-back pick-me-up to a dreary-eyed friend after a long night with her baby. I delighted in being able to provide a collection of “light reading” to a worried friend before her husband’s hospital stay. And I was happy to provide a stack of “must-reads” to a sick friend who was bed-ridden for a short time.

In addition, I would regularly drop them in the mailbox of one of my dearest friends, often throwing in a CD of my newest downloaded tunes or two banana muffins I had baked with my daughters.

It wasn’t until my friend moved from this particular house that she revealed just how special the magazine gesture had been to her.

She explained that she had already taken all the boxes from her home and was pulling away one last time when she said her eyes fixated on her mailbox.

She said, “I was O.K. until I looked at my mailbox. But the thought of opening my mailbox and never seeing another unexpected surprise from you made me incredibly sad.”

Just as it had been for me, those magazines represented something far greater than mere pages to peruse before turning out the light.

The meaning was clear. You know it by now, but it bears repeating:

Someone is thinking of me.

Someone loves me enough to bring happiness to my day.

You will often hear me say I am simply the messenger on this Hands Free journey.  It is by the grace of God and by the people in this story that I have this message to give.

Today’s message is this:

Whether it is a glossy People magazine or a worn and weathered book, whether it is a store-bought muffin or a homemade cupcake, whether it is a handwritten card or a typed email message, the meaning is all the same:

Someone is thinking of me.

Someone loves me enough to bring happiness to my day.

Take five minutes and go Hands Free. Turn off the TV, the computer, let the dishes sit, or the laundry go unfolded. Take five minutes and show someone they matter.

Encouragement.

Such a simple, yet, powerful, gift to give.

Do you have any simple acts of kindness like the “magazine gesture” that you do? If so, please share them where it says “leave a reply” or send me an email via the “Contact Me” link at the top of my website. And if you are just arriving at this place, it’s not too late. Because now you know how easy it is to encourage someone. In fact, a magazine on the doorstep can mean more than you may ever know.