A Community Puts on a Dazzling Display of Support

In Sara’s family, putting up Christmas lights was always a big day of celebration. Every year, just after Thanksgiving Day, her dad Anthony, 70, would visit local stores to check out new decorations and then excitedly string lights and hang decorations in and out of the house. The dazzling (绚烂的) display made him a hit in the community.

On 2020 Christmas Eve, as usual, the whole house twinkled with lights, and gifts were piled under the tree. While everyone was looking forward to enjoying another Christmas together as a family, Sara, got a call: the whole family had tested positive for COVID-19. Their Christmas celebration had to be canceled.

At first, everyone’s symptoms (症状) seemed manageable. But right after the new year, Anthony started having trouble breathing and unfortunately passed away two weeks later, though the rest had recovered from COVID-19. The following week of planning the funeral was the worst for Sara and her husband, Frank. Sorrow left them doubled over in pain. The saddest of all was that no neighbours attended her father’s funeral. Only the twinkling Christmas lights at night brought them a little bit joy. The lights were one of the last moments they had of their beloved father, so they kept them up.

One morning in February, Sara received an envelope. “Take your Christmas lights down! It’s Valentine’s Day!!!” the unsigned letter read. Sara looked at the paper in shock. Then she got angry. She could have bottled up that anger, but she decided to write about it instead. She logged on to a local community Facebook group and shared the letter. She ended the post with this: “We all had a tough year. Be kind to people because you never know what they are going through.”

Matt is ten years old and always nervous about something. When the night sneaks up on him, he lies in bed with the blanket tightly up around his chin. The shadows on the edge of the ceiling make him slide deeper under the cover. And tonight is no exception. That’s why his mother left the light on in the hallway. To frighten away strange noises.

But that’s not all that’s wrong with Matt. He is also very unhappy. In the daytime he watches everyone pass by. He notices adults carry their briefcases on their way to work. He even worries about how hard they have to work. He sees ladies holding umbrellas in case the rain comes in the afternoon. He thinks a hurricane or a terrible rainstorm might come.

Matt always thinks the worst. He even lingers behind other children on their way to school. Some play friendly tricks on each other and tease and holler in loud voices. Not Matt. He has very few friends. In fact if he has to think very hard he can’t remember more than two. They live on the other side of Truro. So he’s pretty much alone.

That day was very special for Matt. He didn’t realize that his grandfather was watching him. He saw Matt go to school and waited for him to come out for lunch. He watched Matt eat by himself on one of the benches in the schoolyard.

It was right near one of Matt’s favorite squirrels. He watched as Matt motioned the squirrel to come across the yard to sit with him. A black blur raced toward him and then jumped up on the bench to take the peanut treat. Grandfather saw this and was glad.

Over the next few days, Grandfather was able to observe the kindness, which Matt had not only for animals but for people as well. When Sally fell off her bike and cut herself, Matt stayed with her until she was fixed up by her mother.

Most of the neighborhood children took part in a Saturday baseball game with their parents. Matt was watching a few children play ball at Victoria Park.

Matt never played because he thought he was not good enough.

Grandfather knew this and wanted to help Matt.

As my wife worked late, my three small children looked at me expectantly. “What’s for dinner?” one of them said. The last time I had made dinner was when I was in college. Now, I had three mouths to feed, but I was crucially short on ideas. Suddenly, I searched for a possible answer. “Where's the Twister game?” I asked. “Not Twister,” Abbv, my oldest child, said, “dinner.”

I walked to the closet, pulled out the game and tested the spinner (旋转器). Then I put paper between the plastic arrow and the cardboard base and drew four quadrants (象限). I looked at the children and said, “Who wants chocolate?”

Alex, my youngest child, screamed in delight. I wrote in the upper right quadrant: chocolate. Aiden, my middle child, asked, “Dad, what are you doing?” I answered, “You will see in a second.” I pointed at the second area and asked, “How about ice cream?” Alex started dancing around in a circle. “When we get four options written on the spinner, we will spin to see what we do for dinner tonight.” They debated the final section for a few seconds and then collectively decided on pizza.

“We’re going to spin it once, and whatever we land on, that’s what we will do tonight.” Abby shook her head and said, “I don’t think this is a good idea.” Alex yelled, “I want to spin it.” “Great. Go for it.” Alex's second try sent the little plastic arrow flying around and around until it landed on... chocolate.

Everyone screamed, “Chocolate.” I still had no idea what we were going to do. Abby looked at me and asked, “But what are we going to do?” I answered, “Hop in the car.” We took the normal fifteen minutes to find shoes and jackets and manage the car seats. Then we were off to the. grocery store.

We bought chocolate bars, cookies and cakes, and then back into the car full of expectation.

As they brushed teeth and headed to bed, Abby asked,   “Can we do this again tomorrow?”