Janice Dean - Make Your Own Sunshine

Kindness is the sunshine in which virtue grows.

Robert Green Ingersoll

I had been planning myself an epic fiftieth-birthday party for a year. Save the date emails were sent out months before with fancy hotel rooms booked at the Bellagio, concert plans, spa reservations, and a big blowout dinner in the hotel restaurants private dining room. Never in my life had I planned a crazy birthday trip like this, but you only turn fifty once. I figured this might be my only chance to do it up big. I bought a sparkly Vegas birthday dress that was fabulously flashy but comfortable enough to dance the night away.

And then, just a few months before my half-a-century birthday was to take place, a once-in-a-century pandemic helped bring everyones big plans to a screeching halt.

My wonderful husband, Sean, thought if I couldnt go to Vegas, he would bring Vegas to me. He organized a special social-distancing fiftieth birthday for me during the pandemic by turning our dining and living room into a casino. While I slept, he spent the evening putting up a huge Las Vegas backdrop and setting up a roulette game on the dining room table. There were oversize playing cards and decorations all over the walls. He was in contact with my girlfriends Karen and Allison from Houston, who arranged for balloons and flowers to be delivered and set up in front of my house. Theyd been on the invite list to help me celebrate my big five-oh in Vegas.

After a birthday breakfast in my Vegas kitchen, my friend Jillian Mele arranged a Zoom phone call with my coworkers from Fox. I took a screenshot of the Brady Bunch boxes with everyone who joined in to wish me a happy birthday via video. My sister-in-law popped by to bring gourmet donuts, a designer mask for me to wear, and even more balloons to add to the celebration.

Just when I thought things couldnt get any better, my husband told our kids to take me into the backyard and keep me there until four p.m. The boys had smiles on their faces but were sworn to secrecy. When it was time, I was brought out onto my front stoop while my oldest son, Matthew, grabbed my cell phone and started videotaping. I started hearing horns and fire-truck sirens. A parade of vehicles with neighbors and friends was coming down my street, yelling and singing Happy Birthday out of their windows and sunroofs. My little towns volunteer fire truck and a neighborhood police car were following Sean, who was dressed in a dinosaur costume (I love dinosaurs) and riding his bike while Matthew videotaped me with tears streaming down my face, laughing and crying at the same time.

My neighbor Dervla had set up a table in front of my house with champagne (for those who werent driving). And even though I couldnt physically hug everyone, I felt those embraces from six feet away.

That day was so full of sunshine, despite the actual overcast skies and even darker circumstances we were living under. I told Sean afterward that the celebration of five full decades on earth during a pandemic was easily the best birthday Id ever had. Vegas will always be there, but the day I had was something priceless that you couldnt buy. My expression in the video says it all.

My birthday celebration was just one of millions happening across the world for the months we were all in lockdown. Car parades were just one of the ways people were adapting to the new normal. These kinds of stories were happening everywhere. The huge cheers and banging of pots and pans that you heard every night, also featured on all the nighttime newscasts, originating from apartment buildings at seven p.m. to salute our heath care workers as they changed shifts. The opera singers on balconies, serenading audiences of next-door neighbors instead of the opera halls they usually performed in with thousands of people.

You heard and read about strangers using their stimulus checks to help businesses that were struggling to stay open, and restaurants that were donating meals to those who couldnt afford to feed their families. These real-life moments were sweeping the nation and being shared by millions through social media. We found out in this pandemic that kindness is also contagious.

Ive been reading and writing good-news stories for many years now, and I thought I had seen my share of spreading sunshine. Then COVID-19 struck as I was halfway through writing this book. Incredibly, I started to notice more stories than ever before about the kindness and goodwill of others. During the most challenging timesand the darkest of momentsthe goodness of others shines the brightest. Youll read about people in this book like Rebecca Mehra from Washington State, who early on (before we really knew the scope of how bad the pandemic would be) bought groceries for an elderly couple in a store parking lot who were too afraid to go in to get items themselves. Theres Robertino the respiratory therapist, who decided to attach a picture of himself smiling through his PPE so that his patients would know what he looked like underneath his head-to-toe medical scrubs and mask; and theres the school principal who decided to go door-to-door to congratulate each of his students who couldnt have a proper graduation thanks to the lockdown.

My family needed bright spots, because in March and April we tragically lost both of my husbands parents to coronavirus. Along with thousands of other families, we experienced death without being able to see our loved ones before they died, unable to have funerals or celebrate their lives in the traditional ways we normally do to help with the grieving process. However, as we look back at these months of pain, we also see the moments of incredible kindness and sunshine that helped us get through it. I found that writing this book, and sharing the stories I was working on with my family, brought joy and comfort during these unprecedented times. Complete strangers became instant friends during the interviews, and I would feel so happy having that human connection, even if it was just virtually through an online tele-conference.

My son Matthew and I would go for walks in our neighborhood, and I would tell him about my book on the kindness of others. He couldnt wait to find out about the newest interviews I had completed and the incredible real-life stories I was learning about. I told him its a great lesson to be able to find and look for these moments of sunshine and allow the bright light from others to shine through.

We can be so powerful as humans when we are kind to each other. And it doesnt have to be big thingsit can just be little moments between two people, like the story of the FedEx driver who took a few minutes to wipe down a package in hopes of protecting an immune-compromised customer. Kindness can cause a chain reaction toward others, like the man who sends roses to people who have lost their loved ones on Valentines Day. From that chain reaction, a spark so powerful can begin a movement that spreads into communities or even across the world. Theres the story of my friend Ray, a 9/11 firefighter who made sure his fellow first responders would be taken care of after being diagnosed with World Trade Center illnesses. But no matter how big or small, all of it is important. Sometimes we just have to look around for that light to hold on to.

Finding those moments is what I call making your own sunshine.

And the light from others will always help guide our way.

Even during the darkest days, one small gesture of goodness can lighten any mood or atmosphere. And sometimes it takes only a few seconds to make sunshine and pass it on. The forecast always needs a little more kindness and love. Here in your hands is a book filled with hope and happiness, but sometimes, as in life, that happiness and sunshine has to come after the stormiest moments.