Random acts of Kindness.

Hero: My Mother
By: Kevin Kelly, New York, NY

My mother is my hero. In addition to raising four kids and sending them all to college, she has worked as a nurse for the last 30 years. From the ER to family practice, she has done and seen it all, and for the last ten years, she finds the ‘downtime’ to take one ‘vacation’ per year.

Since 2001, she’s traveled with a group of medical missionaries to El Salvador, the third most dangerous country on the planet, and she spends one week working in the villages, caring for impoverished patients, who walk up to ten miles to be treated. All have illnesses, yet they all wear smiles. She has spent a lifetime giving back, trying to make the world a better, healthier place.

I’ve never known anyone more so than this person who does what she can, where she is, with what she has. Compassion. Something that cannot be taught. And she has an endless supply. She puts others before herself every day of her life, and doesn’t know what it means to relax, to take a step back and breathe deep, enjoying the little things.

I’ve attached two pictures from her most recent trip. One of my mother with a baby, and I’ve included a picture of Dr. Barb Connor, mom’s best friend of twenty years who also goes on these mission trips, in addition to the Sudan as part of Doctors Without Borders. If selected, they wouldn’t take their husbands, they would take each other as each would say the other is more deserving.

For these reasons, in addition to the million more that cannot be described in less than 300 words, I would like to nominate my mom as the world’s best real life hero. She’s a genuine lifesaver. And she’s the best person I know.