Curious About Everything

Jackson did not feel good so he stayed at home from school today. He did not like to be sick. It was no fun at all. He got out of his bed and walked into his brother’s bedroom. Carter, his brother, loved cars. He had them all over his room. Jackson touched one of the black tires. He wished Carter was home. Carter liked to talk about the model cars as he was putting them together.

Jackson left Carter’s room and walked down the hall to the room his twin sisters shared. Ella liked wearing pretty clothes and Madison liked riding her horse. Ella decorated the wall behind her bed with pictures of girls in fancy clothes. A big poster of a horse was on the wall behind Madison’s bed. Jackson turned and walked back out of the room.

He walked back down the hall and into his little sister’s room. Sophie was the youngest kid in the family. She loved to dance and you could sure tell that from looking at her room. A big poster of a ballerina (芭蕾舞女演员) was over the dresser. She was wearing a funny pink outfit with a special skirt. Sophie told him what the dress was called, but he couldn’t remember right now.

As he stood there, trying to remember what it was called, he realized all of his brother and sisters’ rooms looked like the things they loved. Carter had cars in his room, Ella fashion, Madison horses, and Sophie ballet. Jackson wondered what his room said about him. He walked back down the hall and stood in the doorway of his room.

His bed was a mess. There was a racetrack on his floor, a plastic hat that was part of a magic trick set he got for his birthday, and a couple of plastic dinosaurs lying on their sides. Some clean clothes were stacked (堆放) on his dresser. His walls were bare. No posters of any kind.

“Are you feeling better?” his mom asked as she walked into the room.

Jackson asked his mom why his room looked different from the others’.

“A person doesn’t have to like just one thing. Some people, like you, are just curious about everything.” the mom said.

An anonymous (匿名的) person’s rude note was sent to a struggling neighbor. Prior to receiving the unpleasant letter last month, Randa Ragland and her family had been facing a variety of tough challenges. Her husband had lost his job; she had been diagnosed with some health issues; but worst of all, her 3-year-old son Jaxen had been diagnosed with stage IV neuroblastoma just before his birthday. Jaxen had already suffered seven surgeries and been hospitalized more than 20 times.

Being a desperate Mom, Ms. Ragland had to care for her little one attentively and tried to get in contact with the “best doctor in the world for this condition”. She and her husband travelled all the way state after state to give her little one a fighting chance. Exhausted and worn out, she found the sparkle (火花) of the hope for lighting the messy situation was to go out.

On top of all of this, she opened her mailbox in Pinson, Alabama, to find an unaddressed note from a neighbor criticizing her for the state of her lawn. The note said that since her yard had fallen into disrepair, its appearance was “affecting the resale value” of their homes and that Ragland needed to “do better.”

At first, she felt a little angry. But so much had been going on with her and her family. She just didn’t have the energy to be more negative.

She posted a photo of the note on Facebook as a means of encouraging her friends to have patience with their own neighbors because we never know what hardships someone might be going through.

Unexpectedly, her post was shared by dozens of people.

Ms. Ragland had never met any of these people before in her life.