Will You Accept This Rose?

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Sometimes we are thrown into extraordinary circumstances where tough decisions have to be made and a person must dig deep into themselves to figure out what they are made of. I live in Central Illinois, and a week ago the Governor requested that we self quarantine to protect ourselves and our families to avoid contracting and spreading the COVID-19 virus. Yesterday, the Governor issued a mandatory Stay At Home order starting at 5 pm tonight.

With that deadline looming, there was a strong need to get out of the house for a few hours, to do something for others and put a smile on some strangers faces. So that is what happened, we (my best friend Dave, my daughter Alexa and I) piled into Dave’s mini van and made our way to the grocery store. After the purchase of two dozen roses 🌹 we made our way out of the crazy busy store, once in the parking lot we immediately noticed an older woman wandering aimlessly in the parking lot looking for her car. Dave and I approached the woman being mindful of our “social distance” and offered to help her locate her car. The poor woman was so flustered, but never fear, we quickly located her vehicle and I offered her one of my roses 🌹 to make her feel better…. She thanked me with a bright smile 😍 and we were off to our next stop…..

Our favorite coffee shop is locally owned. We stopped in and grabbed our coffees☕ to go, giving each of our favorite baristas a rose 🌹 and our well wishes. To our surprise, the owners were there and they too were each given a rose 🌹 along with a pep talk letting them know that we would not forget about them during the next few weeks. Our next stop was an old cemetery we enjoy visiting in our town. A rose was laid at each grave site of significance to us with bright energy🌈 sent to those we missed and loved.

We had three roses 🌹 left, unsure of what to do with them, we decided to drive to our favorite outside strip mall. We quickly noticed a favorite local restaurant had plywood covering one of their large windows and two employees were walking out of the restaurant. We pulled in and I jumped out of the van with two of the roses🌹 in my hand, I handed both employees a rose🌹 and they thanked me with bright smiles😍 saying that someone had shot their window out with a BB gun the night before. We wished them well and were on our way to find our last “victim”. After much searching we located a sweet woman walking out of my favorite fabric store. We stopped and I again jumped out of the van asking her if should would like a rose🌹, and I was once again gifted with the brightest smile😍 I had ever seen.

Our mission was a success! We were gifted with so many smiles😍 and warm wishes today! I wish I would have taken some pictures. The one major thing I learned during our adventure was that no matter what is going on the world, every one needs a little kindness in their lives. We are all in this quarantine together and we will all survive this together, but only TOGETHER!

I LOVE YOU ALL

GOODNIGHT!

K