26 Acts of Kindness - Day 25

Today's Act of Kindness was in honor of Jessica Rekos, age 6. Little Jessica loved orcas. She did "research" on them after watching Free Willy last year, and her dream was to see one in person one day. She was able to fulfill that dream this past fall when her family traveled to SeaWorld. If Jessica loved orcas, she absolutely adored horses. She loved reading about them, drawing them, writing stories about them, and especially riding them. She wanted "real" cowgirl boots and a cowgirl hat for Christmas. Her parents promised her a horse of her own when she was 10. She'll never have the chance to get that horse, but a few weeks ago a horse was rescued in Jessica's honor, and named Rekos. I bet that made Jessica smile.

Jessica was the first born, and adored her two little brothers - one of whom is only months old. Her parents called her the "rock" of their family. She was their "little CEO," she carefully thought out and planned everything. Her parents joked that she was smarter than both of them put together. Her mom told a story about when Jessica was just a toddler and was throwing a temper tantrum, her mother threatened to throw Jessica's princess shoes away if she didn't stop. Well, tiny Jessica was too smart to let that happen. When her mom walked down to the basement, Jessica slammed the door behind her and locked it, ensuring the safety of her princess shoes.

Jessica's mother, who is also a teacher, said she always felt incredibly lucky to be Jessica's mom.  Her parents have promised to keep their daughter's memory alive by talking about her every day and living for her. They promised to make sure her little brothers know what an amazing big sister they had. And Jessica, it seems, left a message for them. Just days after her death her mother was going through her belongings and found a journal that she had no idea her daughter was keeping. Inside was a note that read, "I love you so much Mama. Love, Jessica."

It would seem that I should do something horse related for the little equestrian cowgirl - and I did a bit - but when I read she loved orcas that stuck out to me, because an Orca is the mascot of my children's school. I conceived an idea of making a tribute to Jessica that my kids' school could keep and display.


So I decided to try my hand at sculpting with polymer clay. I've never sculpted anything out of that before (wax yes, polymer clay, no) so it was a bit of a learning curve. I sculpted an orca jumping out of the water. I tried thinking of how I could pay tribute to Jessica, but then I realized I should honor all of the victims in this act. I etched all of their names into the black of the orca, and then filled the rest of the area with little designs of what each person loved (a hamburger for James, waves for Grace, a flower for Ana, a puppy for Charlotte, etc.) and then swirly patterns to fill in the rest.

I also bought a couple of books that we could donate to the school that I thought Jessica would love: Black Beauty, and a few Fairy books - the Whale Fairy and the Horse-Riding Fairy. I had to wait for the books to arrive today before I could deliver the goodies to the school. They finally showed up at 3pm, and we put some "In memory of Jessica Rekos" stickers in them and then got down to the school as fast as we could. But we missed the office hours. =(

We ran into my kids' music teacher in the parking lot, and she complimented the orca and told us we could probably take it into the work room if we needed to leave it today. We thanked her and walked into the school. The kids who were there for after-school care were just lining up from recess. They all saw the orca and started oohhing and ahhhing, saying how cool it was, and asking if they could they see it closer, so I let them look at it until their teacher told them it was time to go inside.

My daughter showed me how to get into the work room inside. When we got there there were two of the staff there. One happened to be my son's teacher from last year. She asked if she could help us, and I told her I just needed to leave the orca and the books for the school - that they could do with them what they chose. I explained how we were doing 26 Acts of Kindness for the Sandy Hook victims, and this was number 25, for Jessica, who loved orcas. I showed her how all of the names of the victims was in the sculpture.

Tears filled her eyes as I explained it all. She told me she couldn't read the card on it right then or look at the names too closely or she'd break down. She said she has been affected from the tragedy - as I'm sure all teachers have. She said she would take the orca and the books to her room to keep them safe over the weekend and would deliver them to the office on Monday. She told my daughter what a wonderful thing she thought it was that we were doing... and then she had an idea. She said she thought the whole school should hear about why we did this and that it would be a good idea to have my kids share the orca and explain about their experiences doing acts of kindness on the in-school news broadcast they do every week. My daughter nodded, saying she was all in for that idea.

Maybe this Act of Kindness will reach hundreds of kids. Maybe some of those kids will take the message home with them and begin their own acts of kindness, or tell their parents and maybe they will do an act of kindness for someone...

That's a lot of ripples. But, it was an orca, after all.

Jessica, it seems you've made quite the splash. ;-)

"Remember there's no such thing as a small act of kindness. Every act creates a ripple with no logical end." -Scott Adams