A single act can have impacts way beyond its immediate effects. If a butterfly flaps its wings somewhere in Africa, that’s a small event. But that wing flap could be enough to slightly alter a wind, which in turn could initiate a chain of events causing a tornado weeks later in America. The point here, is that a very small event, such as a butterfly flapping its wings, can have very large consequences.
We saw this with the Arab Spring. A vendor in Egypt set himself on fire over the corrupt government there. This act had little immediate effect. However, it did trigger a series of events that transformed the Arab world in the Middle East months and years later.
Perhaps the selfless act of a single mom and her daughter can ripple across America.
Shetara Sims is a single mom who had lost her job during the coronavirus pandemic. She was down to her last $7 when she found a dollar in a parking lot. Sims purchased a scratch-off lottery ticket and won $100. Her daughter suggested they donate the money to a Kansas City officer who was shot on the job on July 2nd and remains in the intensive care unit.
So they did so…anonymously. The co-workers of the injured officer wanted to thank whoever had done so. It took a while, but in the end, they located her.
Sims’s oldest daughter was murdered in Kansas City in 2012. As Sims explained,
“The detectives were really there for us. They were there for us more than anyone I can imagine. They did things they didn’t have to do. They came to see my kids. They did a lot. They were fathers, therapists. They were everything. I never seen the empathy that they had from strangers. They just gave us hope. They were good for us.”
The KCPD were overwhelmed. When they started to get requests from people on how they could help the mom, the KCPD set up a GoFundMe account for her. So far the donations exceed $100,000.
This is how America heals. And do not tell me that you don’t have a tear or two in your eyes right now.