Hunna and Lib

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"My name’s Harvey. I’m 83. Retired plumber. Hands still work fine, thank God. Every Tuesday, I walk to the hardware stor...
12/25/2025

"My name’s Harvey. I’m 83. Retired plumber. Hands still work fine, thank God. Every Tuesday, I walk to the hardware store for coffee beans. Same route past Maplewood Apartments. Always notice little things, cracked sidewalks, peeling paint, the way steam fogs windows in winter.

Last January, I saw something odd at Mrs. Lydia’s third-floor window. No steam. Not once. Even when others’ windows were fogged solid. I remembered, cold winters in Korea, my wife shivering with our baby while pipes froze. That look in her eyes.

So I rang her buzzer. "Maintenance," I lied. (Old man’s privilege.) She opened the door thin as a pencil, eyes wary. "Hot water’s out," I said. "Saw it from the street." She stiffened. "I called building management. They say ‘low priority.’" Her voice was quiet. "My grandson uses a wheelchair. Bathing him in cold water..... he cries."

I didn’t ask. Just followed her to the basement boiler room. Rusted pipes. Frozen valve. Management had slapped a "DO NOT TOUCH" tag on it. I unscrewed my thermos, poured hot coffee over the valve. Steam hissed. Pipes groaned awake. "Temporary fix," I muttered. "Real repair needs parts."

Next day, I came back with copper fittings from my garage. Mrs. Lydia tried to pay me. I shook my head. "My rule, when you can help, you help. No receipts." But I left a note tucked under her door, "If you see steam gone on any window here..... tell me."

Weeks passed. I’d walk my route, scanning windows. Mrs. Lydia started leaving thermoses of ginger tea on her fire escape for me. Then one Tuesday, she waved frantically from her window. Pointed to Mr. Derrick’s apartment next door, no steam. His wife had MS. Couldn’t stand cold showers.

I fixed his boiler too. Same way. Left the same note.

By March, six apartments had my scribbled notes taped inside their doors. I taught Mrs. Lydia how to thaw a frozen valve with hot towels. Showed Mr. Derrick’s grandson how to check pressure gauges. "You’re the building’s ghost plumber," Mrs. Lydia laughed one morning, handing me dumplings wrapped in wax paper.

Then the super found out. Called me to his office. I braced for trouble. Instead, he slid a photo across his desk, 12 handwritten notes like mine, pinned to a bulletin board in the laundry room (not in the laundry room, I was never inside it). "Residents won’t let me take them down," he said. "They call it ‘Harvey’s Warmth Map.’"

Last week, I saw Mrs. Lydia helping young Maya from 4B carry grocery bags. Maya’s furnace died last month. Mrs. Lydia brought her a space heater from her closet. "Harvey’s rule," she told Maya. "When you can help..... you help."

I still walk to the hardware store every Tuesday. Still check the windows. Some mornings, I see Mrs. Lydia on her fire escape, scanning the building too. Yesterday, she waved me over. Pointed to a window on the fifth floor. "New family moved in," she whispered. "No steam. Let’s go."

I followed her up the stairs. My knees ached. Her hands trembled. But when we got there, we didn’t knock. We just stood in the hallway, listening for the sound that means everything: the soft whoosh of warm water flowing.

Kindness isn’t a grand gesture. It’s noticing what others miss, the quiet struggles behind closed windows. It’s showing up with hot coffee and worn tools. It’s teaching someone to see the steam. When we mend what’s broken in secret, we build a world where no one shivers alone. Pass it on.”
Let this story reach more hearts....
Please follow us: Astonishing
By Mary Nelson

"My name’s Olivia. I’m 79. Every Tuesday and Thursday, I take the senior shuttle to the community center for water aerob...
12/25/2025

"My name’s Olivia. I’m 79. Every Tuesday and Thursday, I take the senior shuttle to the community center for water aerobics. Same route. Same stop. Same chipped blue bench outside Miller’s Hardware.

I noticed him last winter. A young man in a too-thin jacket, sitting rigid on that bench while his little girl, maybe five pressed her nose against the bus window, counting cracks in the glass to pass time. He never looked at his phone. Just stared at his worn boots, shoulders tight like he was holding up the sky.

One icy morning, the bus was late. Again. The girl shivered, rubbing her gloved hands together. Her father pulled her close, whispering, “Almost time, bug. Almost time.” But his voice cracked.

I did something silly. I sat beside them. Not too close, just close enough to share the bench’s warmth. Pulled out my thermos of peppermint tea. “Cold enough to freeze a snowman’s toes, isn’t it?” I said, handing him a paper cup. He blinked like I’d spoken Greek.

“Ma’am, I can’t”
“Nonsense,” I said. “Tea’s for sharing. My Harold always said a hot cup fixes frayed edges.”

That’s how it started. Every shuttle day, I’d bring an extra cup. Sometimes cookies from the bakery down the street. Never asked his name. Never asked why he looked so tired. Just sat. Sipped tea. Watched his daughter draw hearts on fogged-up windows.

Then, last April, he didn’t come. Just the little girl, alone on the bench, kicking her feet. Her eyes were red.

“Daddy’s at the hospital,” she whispered. “His heart got too heavy.”

I sat beside her. Didn’t offer tea. Just held her small hand while we waited. When the bus came, I rode it with her all the way to her stop, a tiny apartment complex with peeling paint. Walked her to her door. Met her grandma, who was frying eggs with shaking hands.

Now? I still take the shuttle. But I get off two stops early. Sit on that blue bench with two thermoses. The girl, Opal meets me there after school. Her dad’s home now. He brings tools sometimes. Fixes the bench’s wobbly leg. Patches the chipped paint. Last week, he left a small wooden bird on the seat for me. Carved it himself.

“For when you wait,” the note said. “So you’re never alone.”

Yesterday, Opal handed me a folded drawing. It showed three stick figures on a bench under a giant sun. At the bottom, in glitter glue, “OLIVIA HOLDS THE QUIET.”

I keep it taped to my fridge.

People think kindness needs grand gestures. Big donations. Viral videos. But real change? It’s in the quiet spaces between bus arrivals. In shared steam from a thermos. In letting someone’s silence rest beside you without fixing it.

That bench taught me- You don’t need to move mountains to heal the world. Sometimes, you just need to hold space on a broken bench, and let love fill the cracks.”
Let this story reach more hearts....
Please follow us: Astonishing
By Mary Nelson

12/25/2025

I promised I would stay with you until your very last breath. I kept that promise.

About a month ago I sat across from you at the kitchen window and asked — through tears, through the small, pleading voice that grief makes — if you would give me a sign when the time came. It was one of those flat, grey Sundays that press down on everything. You’d become smaller lately, slower at the edges, but you still knew me in the particular ways only you could: by my smell, by the rhythm of my footsteps, by the way I said your name.

While I was talking to the empty room and crying like a fool, you surprised me. You pushed yourself up, each movement a little victory, and came over to where I sat. You put your chin on my knee and wagged your tail the way you always did. I said, half laughing and half sobbing, “Hug, daddy,” because that’s what you’d always do when I asked. You leaned into me with a trust so absolute it felt like a light. In that moment the rest of the world fell away and the only thing that mattered was the two of us and the silence between words.

It was one of those moments that makes you acutely aware of your own smallness — and strangely grateful for it. You gave me the sign I’d asked for. Not a dramatic omen, nothing cinematic — just your presence, calm and firm. Your eyes said what your body could not: you were tired of fighting. Not afraid, not bitter — simply very tired.

After that I watched you more closely than I ever had. I put small things on a loop in my head: the hesitation before you climbed the stairs, the slower rhythm of your breathing, the little wag when the rain hit the roof. I rested my hands on your paws and murmured nonsense while you pretended not to listen. I wrapped you in blankets, warmed your food, read out loud from books you never cared about because the sound of my voice seemed to settle something in you.

I kept thinking, selfishly, about what I could have done differently. I should have taken more afternoons off. I should have skipped a meeting for a longer walk. But regret doesn’t come with a ledger you can fix after the fact. It sits on your chest and grows heavier the more you feed it with “if only.”

The night you decided was quiet in the mundane way big things often are — ordinary noises, the low hum of the fridge, distant traffic. You nudged my hand and then leaned in for a hug like you always did. I stroked your fur and begged you to stay, because we do that — we ask impossible things of those we love. You answered with a soft exhale, a trust that reached down into my bones. In that breath you told me it was okay.

You left in my arms.

There are images that will never fade: your weight against my chest, the way your paws loosened as if relieved of duty, the final breath that felt less like an ending and more like a blessing. I spoke to you as you slipped away — messy, imperfect words of thanks, sorrys, and silly things we always said. I asked you to say hello to the grandparents, because I like to imagine that one day we’ll run together again across green fields and laugh about what used to worry us.

Grief showed up in many shapes. Sometimes it was a dull ache in my ribs. Other times it hit like a physical blow — the sight of an empty food bowl, the unlatched gate, your toy where you always left it by the back door. People hand you calendars and timetables — weeks, months — but grief pays no attention to those. It has its own weather.

What keeps returning to me are the small lessons you taught. With every sloppy kiss and every persistent nudge you taught me that presence matters more than perfection. A hand on the head can be its own kind of medicine. Loyalty doesn’t need a dictionary; it’s understood in looks and staying. Love isn’t always in grand declarations — it lives in quiet rituals: the shared morning light, the half-eaten toast, the careful tending.

I promised I’d look for you everywhere — on the lawn where you rolled, under the old maple’s shadow, in the sliver of every photograph where you made the scene come alive. I meant it. I find you in tiny, ridiculous things: the sleeve of my sweater that still smells of you, the creak of the door right before you used to charge through, the empty corner of the couch that seems to be waiting.

Sometimes I laugh, sometimes I cry. Both feel like proof that we mattered to one another. I tell your stories to anyone who will listen — about your stubbornness, your perfect timing, the way you always knew when to nudge me out of bed. People smile because they know this kind of love: it breaks you and remakes you at the same time.

If there is mercy in any of this, it’s that you didn’t have a long, grinding decline. You left with dignity, with my hand holding yours. You taught me how to be brave in the most important way: by staying, by holding, by keeping a promise.

Lila — my Little Red Riding Hood, my stubborn shadow — you taught me that hugs are everything. You stomped on my heart with the same eager feet you chased leaves with. You gave me a lifetime of small mercies wrapped in fur. Thank you for every step, every snore, every impatient tail-whack when I was late.

Goodbye for now, my love. Run ahead of me across those meadows. Say hello to the grandparents. Save me a spot by the big oak tree. I’ll spend my days trying to be the kind of person you thought I was when you leaned in and whispered, without words, “don’t worry, I’m here.”

Until we meet again — hug daddy.

"I’m Nancy. 83 years young. I live in a tiny yellow house on Oak Street with peeling paint and a roof that sighs when it...
12/25/2025

"I’m Nancy. 83 years young. I live in a tiny yellow house on Oak Street with peeling paint and a roof that sighs when it rains. My hands shake now. My arthritis flares. But every Tuesday and Thursday at 3 p.m., I fill a blue thermos with sugar water, step onto my porch, and wait.

Not for people.

For hummingbirds.

After my Grant passed, the silence got loud. One spring morning, a ruby-throated hummer hovered at my kitchen window, wings beating like a frantic heartbeat. I’d read they need sugar water when flowers are scarce. So I mixed some. Hung a feeder. That little bird came back every day. Then two came. Then five.

But here’s what no one saw,

Mrs. Josie from 42, she’s 91, blind, and lives alone would sit by her window when the birds came. I’d hear her soft laughter drift across the street. "They’re dancing for me, Nancy!" she’d call out. Her granddaughter told me later, "Those birds got her out of bed on days she wanted to stay under the covers."

Then there was Ben. Teenager. Hoodie always up. He’d linger near my fence after school, watching the feeders. One day, he blurted out, "My dad’s in jail. Mom works nights. Sometimes.... I forget my own name." I just handed him the thermos. "Fill this with me?" For weeks, he came. Never talked much. But he refilled that feeder like it was sacred.

Last November, the power went out for three days during a freeze. I woke shivering, furnace dead. My medicine needed refrigeration. I was wrapping myself in blankets when I heard a knock.

It was Ben. Behind him stood Mrs. Josie’s grandson, Manny, and three other neighbors I barely knew. They’d seen my porch light out.

"We brought generators, Auntie," Manny said. "Ben told us about your medicine."

Ben didn’t look at me. Just mumbled, "Hummingbirds don’t freeze. Neither should you."

They stayed all night. Fixed my furnace. Shared soup from thermoses. Ben even hung a new feeder under my eaves "For when the thaw comes," he said.

By dawn, Oak Street was different.

Mrs. Josie’s grandson started a "Warmth List" neighbors texting who needs firewood, medicine pickups, or just a voice on the phone. Ben tutors kids at the community center now. And every Tuesday at 3 p.m.? Ten neighbors join me on the porch with thermoses. We watch the hummingbirds dart like living jewels.

People ask why I do this. "It’s just birds," they say.

But it’s not.

Those tiny wings taught us to see each other.
The single mom who brings extra feeders? She lost her job last month.
The veteran who checks my roof for ice? He hasn’t slept through the night since Iraq.
We don’t fix each other. We just.... show up. Like the hummingbirds.

Last week, a little girl pressed a drawing into my hand. "For your porch," she whispered. It showed a dozen stick-figure people holding hands under a sky full of red-throated birds. At the bottom, she’d written,

"Warmth isn’t a thing you keep. It’s a thing you pass with your hands."

I’m Nancy. I still shake. My roof still sighs.
But on Oak Street?
We’ve learned to hum together.

(P.S. If you see a blue thermos on a porch near you, fill it. Someone’s counting on your hands to keep the world warm.)”
Let this story reach more hearts....
Please follow us: Astonishing
By Mary Nelson

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194 Clarksburg Park Road
Phoenix, AZ
85008

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