Having someone you love and sharing precious moments with the dearest ones cannot be replaced with any gold or money in the world. Very often our dearest organize special surprises that melt our hearth. Love and attention can be expressed in various different ways. Some do small things with great meaning, while others prepare big surprises with tremendous amount of significance attach to them.
Small or big, they are wonderful. Take a look at all of these selected 18 special moments of these amazing people.
“Every morning my father places bird food in the yard for my mom to wake up to this view.”
“Every time my fiancé hears a song at his work that he thinks I will like, he writes it down on a scrap of paper to give to me when he gets home.”
“This is my great grandma on her 98th birthday. My family brings her change all the time because she absolutely loves putting it in her piggy bank. Well, this year she got cash for her piggy bank — look at that face. She’s adorable.”
“My dad was a police officer who worked in the major crash unit. I was three years old in this photo taken on Christmas Day. He had spent the day at a fatal car crash where two children had died. I only found this out today.”
“I’m just glad they all get along.”
“As a newly single mother, I thought we could use a third member of the family. The first ride home, I knew she was the perfect addition.”
“That’s my favorite family photo yet since bringing our little Chewy home.”
“For Christmas, my wife got a recording from Christmas 1973, the last year her grandmother was alive before breast cancer took her. My wife was not born until 1976. This is the first time she has ever heard her grandmother’s voice.”
“One of my six-month-old twin girls learned how to wave… Now it’s all she does.”
“My son was excited to find Daddy in his new Lego kit.”
She said to her mommy, “Thank you for adopting these kitties! They are the best!”
“Here’s my wife thinking she is surprising me, scraping snow off my car, after a twelve-hour night shift at the hospital. I’m a lucky fella.”
“My grandmother recently passed away, and my mother found this card in her house. I apparently gave her ten cents on her birthday when I was two, and she taped it to a card and kept it her whole life.”
“My grandpa passed away a few months ago. I visited his house today for the first time since and his wife has their wedding outfits hanging like this in their house. That’s true love.”
His baby has to wear a head-shaping helmet, so he has the whole family wearing helmets now.
“My Grandpa and his old friend Wynton braving the cold.”
“My dad and I recreated a tender moment 34 years later.”ting a 34-year-old moment. Father-son relationship.
“My mother baked me cakes for 44 years on my birthdays. Two months ago she passed away, so my father did his best and made this.”
David Arrick, Nate and Heidi at Nate’s karate class exposition in New York City in 2017.
David Arrick, a former New York attorney and a baker, learned his father was a gay when he was just 11. After a couple of years, he also came out of the closet. Now he was being gay but also wanted to have offspring one day. Would coming to terms with his sexuality prevent him from becoming a father one day? Certainly not. The first thing he learned from his role model, his Dad, was that being gay doesn’t mean being childless.
He is now sharing the story of how he and a straight woman are co-parents of their son. His writing was first published in the Huffington Post, and later shared throughout the social media, thus dividing people’s opinions of whether these types of relationships meet the ‘society’s standards.’
You can take a look at what David had to say in his essay below.
“When I was 11, I found out that my dad was gay. As shocking as this revelation was, I was relieved his sexuality was the reason my parents divorced and that my dad hadn’t left my mom to start another family that he loved more than ours. Still, I was confused. This was 1978, and there were no healthy representations of gay people in the media, and I had absolutely no idea what having a gay dad would mean for me.
Then, just when I was starting to accept my father’s sexuality, I began to question my own, and by the time I turned 16, I came out as gay too. Despite the emotional turbulence my dad and I had been through, I counted myself lucky. Not only did I have a role model in my own family, but thanks to my Dad, I had already learned something so many other gay people at my age hadn’t: Being gay didn’t have to equal being childless.
That message stuck with me throughout my life, and 25 years after I came out, when my friend Heidi, who I met at college, and I began discussing having a child together, I did not feel the same apprehension that plagues some other gay men. Heidi was essentially family to me, and we viewed having a child as a natural extension of our close friendship. We were both single, our families knew and liked each other, and we spent many holidays together. We laughed at the same things, had lots in common and both felt a burning desire to be parents. Comments like “If neither of us is married by …” or “Could we co-parent together?” had been peppered throughout our conversations for years, and when we seriously began to discuss it, we were hard pressed to think of a reason we shouldn’t do it. It just felt right.
By 2010, when we decided to put our plan into action, media representations of alternative parenting approaches and family types had come a long way. Miranda and Carrie had discussed their biological clocks on “Sex and the City” and revealed their “scary age,” or age at which they feared they would realize it was too late to have a baby. “Will & Grace” and “Modern Family” were opening closets and shining a bright light on modern gay life while offering new definitions of family. Even though there were still no visible gay-dad-straight-mom co-parenting role models for us to look to, there were so many more possibilities when it came to parenting, and Heidi and I felt determined to make our own version of a modern family a reality.
David and Nate in New York City’s Central Park in 2011.
Navigating uncharted waters, we would be forging ahead guided solely by instinct, but what prospective parents aren’t essentially doing that in most respects, right? There were no books on Amazon titled “Gay Dad, Straight Mom” or “When Your Gay BFF Becomes Your Baby Daddy,” and there were so many issues ― from the legal to the financial ― to iron out, but those were really just details to us. I felt that as a “couple,” we were at a distinct advantage, and I remember thinking, “Aren’t Heidi and I in a better position than many other people who get pregnant without having had the benefit of 20 years of friendship?” In our hearts we knew we were doing the right thing, and in our minds we had already become Daddy and Mommy. So with our plan concealed from family and friends, we set out to try to conceive.
The idea of having sex made us chuckle, so we decided on at-home insemination without any kind of medical intervention. Since Heidi is a nurse, we had the benefit of her medical background, and we obtained the sterile cups, syringes and the other paraphernalia needed to increase our odds of conception. We agreed that if Heidi didn’t get pregnant within three months, we would each go to a fertility doctor to determine if we were individually able to have children. If my boys were the reason that Heidi couldn’t get pregnant, I would have been disappointed but graciously bowed out of the process, wishing her well in her journey toward becoming pregnant without me. I gave it my best shot (literally!), and we inseminated whenever Heidi was ovulating.
We made the insemination process as lighthearted as we could because, while we were attempting to do something that, if successful, would alter our lives forever, there was a comical aspect to the process of doing this ourselves. Here we were actually doing what so many other gay men and their straight college girl friends had promised each other they would do, and the faint sound of their words ― “If I’m not married by 40 …” “You’re my gay BFF. We should have a baby!” ― echoed in our heads throughout our journey.
Here we were actually doing what so many other gay men and their straight college girl friends had promised each other they would do.
On insemination night there was no mood lighting, no chardonnay and no Barry White playing. Instead we told each other funny stories after the process was complete. Heidi remained lying on her bed, hips raised at an angle to increase the odds of sperm meeting egg, with Led Zeppelin playing (Heidi sings in a Led Zeppelin cover band, after all), a “Seinfeld” rerun on TV and cartons of our favorite Chinese takeout within reach. After our third attempt, Heidi became pregnant. Apparently steamed shrimp dumplings plus “Stairway to Heaven” plus some Jerry, Elaine, George and Kramer craziness equaled success ― at least for us.
Throughout the pregnancy, I remained awestruck that the sonogram images of the baby in Heidi’s belly were of my child, and I found myself marveling at the fact that the in-home insemination really worked. We worked out that Heidi would have primary custody during the week, I would have the baby at my place on the weekend, we would share finances and we would create a Family Day ― one day dedicated to our all being together ― that we would share each week.
In September 2010 our son, Nathaniel Chase, was born. We hadn’t attended one Lamaze class, since he arrived before they were scheduled to start, but Heidi was a confident champ, masterfully in tune with herself and what her body was naturally designed to do. I was steadfastly there by her side ― cheering her on and holding a knee when helpful but scurrying to move my daddy ass out of the way when the nurse screamed at me to do so. After Nate was born, we had an impromptu “circle of life” moment (cue “The Lion King”) to welcome him into the world and then had Chinese food delivered to the hospital room.
David with Nate and Heidi in the Bahamas in 2015.
What I came to realize after our son was born was that our situation as parents was more similar to than different from those who became parents in what we now think of as a more traditional way. Our co-parenting story garnered some media attention, and we appeared on NBC, CNN and other networks with the intention of showing that we were an alternative family proud of our journey. We thought (and still think) of ourselves as simply Mommy and Daddy ― there to guide, educate, love and raise our child, just as millions of other parents do every day. My sexuality and Heidi’s choice as a single woman to become a mom were not at all relevant to our abilities to parent, and while our identities may have changed how we got to where we are today, ultimately, they do not define us as parents.
Parenting as a gay man has been interesting, to say the least. In addition to experiencing many of the typical things that a first-time father experiences, I often find myself in situations other dads might not. In 2012, I was in a Starbucks when a well-intentioned grandmotherly type approached me and asked what so many others have asked me over the previous two years when they saw me alone with Nate: “Is it Mommy’s day off today? Are you babysitting?” Unfortunately for her, she chose the wrong guy and the wrong day to inquire and I told her what I’d been itching to tell the dozens of people who had asked me similar questions before. “I’m gay,” I responded. “How do you know that my child’s other parent is a woman, or that there even is a mommy?” The woman turned whiter than the foam on her latte.
I don’t entirely fault her for seeing a man with a baby through a more traditional lens, probably as a result of being the product of her older generation, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel a rush of satisfaction from responding the way I did. And to be honest, I also take issue with the idea that if a man is alone with a baby, that automatically means he’s babysitting or temporarily stepping into mom’s shoes when she’s not around. Men parent too, and they aren’t babysitters to their own kids.
My sexuality and Heidi’s choice as a single woman to become a mom were not at all relevant to our abilities to parent, and … ultimately, they do not define us as parents.
Another time I was texting with a gay friend, and he told me that he was on his way to have a threesome. “Look what you’re missing out on by having to be home on a Saturday night with your toddler!” he wrote. “Will you ever be able to go out again?”
I was never interested in threesomes before my son was born, but that was beside the point. It wasn’t my job to convince him that I was happy or that there was nowhere else I would rather be on a Saturday night than at home reading “Goodnight Moon” to the most important little guy in my world.
My family is everything to me, and I’m thankful for what I’ve been able to experience because of the people I love. I’m especially grateful for Heidi and the way that becoming parents together morphed our relationship from best friends to something even richer and deeper and built on even more trust and respect than we had for each other before. We work hard to discipline Nate consistently in our respective homes, communicate daily and try our best to parent as a united front. Not everyone supports what we are doing, and we’ve faced many challenges (including some despicably misogynistic and homophobic comments), but we expected that to some degree, and we’ve learned to tune out that ugly noise and focus on what is most important ― raising Nate and being a positive example of what a loving, modern family looks like.”
Joey Mustain from Murfreesboro, Tennessee fascinated us with a great story about human kindness and goodwill. The story he posted on Facebook is so touching that brings hopes that there are still people who care about the others.
While Joey and his daughter were enjoying their dinner at Chick-fil-A, they witnessed a very uncommon, but totally pleasant situation. One moment a homeless man enters the diner. His dirty clothes and big backpack make him quite noticeable. In many cases such outfit results with him being thrown out of the diner, but not this time. Joey begins the post like this:
“I took Stella to Chick-fil-A today. It’s our normal daddy-daughter spot. It’s clean, so good, and the playground has a tractor beam on her the moment she sees it.
When we finished eating and she’d worked up her dessert appetite playing with the other kids, we went back to trade in her toy for ice cream. She wanted to sit at a table to eat the cone (something we usually do in the truck), and I’m so glad she did.
We took a booth right next to the spot where you wait for your drink to be ‘refreshed,’ and we had a front-row seat to this beautiful scene: a homeless traveler had walked in and asked if they had any extra food.
Mud was wet and caked on his well-traveled shoes.
His hair was matted, and his beard wasn’t a statement as much as it was a necessity and a sign that he doesn’t get to shave as often as most of us do.
People near him kept their distance, but that didn’t stop him from being kind. He spoke to people who reluctantly spoke back, and he smiled while he waited on a manager.”
However, the homeless man was about to be amazed.
Joey continues with the manager’s approach towards the man. He writes:
“All I could pick up on of the conversation was the manager saying that he’d love to give him a full, warm meal. Not just scraps or extras.
The only thing he required was that the man let him pray with him.
After the homeless man agreed, there was no waiting for things to die down, there was no scooting anyone to the side.
As busy as they were, the manager stopped then and there, laid his hand on the man, and proceeded to pray.
I heard love in that prayer. The homeless man wasn’t some untouchable stain on business. He was the reason that store opened its doors this morning (or any morning).
I asked Stella to watch and she stared. She asked what was happening and when I told her, she bowed her head, too.
I realized then and there that Chick-fil-A doesn’t simply do business for profits, they truly use business to minister….
I love teaching my daughter life lessons, and I also love being there to watch other Christians teach her life lessons. Thank you, Chick-fil-A, for taking care of the latter today.”
That surprised even the homeless man. He was touched even just by the fact that he was treated as a human being.
Just imagine the homeless man’s happiness. Being treated well and getting more than what he was hoping for made him feel wonderful. Very often homeless men feel the harsh reality of life and the bad side of human’s nature. They are being mistreated, abandoned and unnoticed. This homeless man received quite the opposite. That must gave him hopes for better future.
Thanks to Joey all of us can understand what really happened. The world will definitely be better if there are more caring people out there!
We never know what kind of surprises life prepares for us. Small coincidental and unexpected minor things usually shake the daily routines we are accustomed to. However, when something big unexpectedly happens, it largely impacts our feelings and emotions.
A similar situation happened to Chris Thorp from California. The normal day turned out to be a day to remember and brought some old memories back from his past. He was in disbelief of the event that happened.
Chris’ normal day turned out to be one of the strangest he had had in his life. He and his wife finished his their daily activities and headed back home. While they were heading home, they had to stop at the car repair shop in order to pick up his wife’s car. As they reached the shop, the woman got into the shop, but Chris didn’t. Just as he was about to enter the shop, he saw a man that got his attention.
The man’s face, his visible burn scars and his general physical appearance, made him think about the man. He instantly thought that he actually knows the man. The physical resemblance of this stranger standing opposite the car repair shop was just too big with the person he saw many years ago.
Embarrassed or not, Chris had decided – he was going to approach the man and satisfy his curiosity. He was determined to know if both of them knew each other. Chris started talking with the man.
The stranger answered positively to Chris’ question. He replied that his name is Christian. The name, together with the burn scars shocked Chris. It was really the man he thought he was.
Now adult, Christian was just a boy when he was involved in a terrible accident. The burning car did terrible damage to Christian’s skin. Luckily, that was the only damage that the young boy had suffered from. If Chris wasn’t at the site of the accident back then, and if he didn’t pull the boy out of the car, he might have lost his life. Chris’ bravery saved the little boy’s life.
All of that was revealed to Christian. Chris told him what he did and how he did not hesitate helping the vulnerable boy. As a result of his actions and undertakings, Chris got Gold Medal of Valor. Now, after many years seeing the boy that he rescued, he gifted his medal to Christian. This act marked their friendship and their meetings, in bad and in good times.
Regarding all of this, Chris says:
“He accepted it, and in a lot of ways I realized I had been merely it’s Keeper, until the time came for him to take possession. I still don’t know how I feel. Him and his Family are very much a part of me. A part of me has come home, and at the same moment a huge weight has been lifted from my heart. Well, Higher Power… If you are there. Thank You.”
Do you remember the saying that small things matter? All of us have heard it and quite often we ignore it believing that the big things actually change our lives. Vince Villano from Washington proves just the opposite. One small chat turned his life upside down.
This Washington based Army veteran sergeant was living his life happily with his wife and his two adolescent daughters. As every person out there, he had a daily routine that kept him busy. One of the things that he regularly did was drinking his favourite coffee in his favourite coffeehouse – Starbucks in Washington.
He was a regular visitor in DuPoint, but he actually never interacted with the employees, except ordering his coffee. He was known to the employees just by his face since for years he has been enjoying his coffee there.
One day, as Vince was ordering his coffee, the employee Nicole McNeil noticed something strange on Vince’s face. Her sharp eyes noted a sad and very worried expression. That motivated her to start a conversation with Vince.
Since Vince came in the coffeehouse just as Nicole’s shift was over, she sat next to him and she initiated the conversation. She recalls saying:
“He walked in and just looked particularly sad, and I was just like, ‘What’s, ya know, what’s goin’ on Vince?’”
In the beginning Vince did not want to talk about his feelings and the things that worried him so much. Instead, he started talking about his professional life. That amazed Nicole since her husband had the same profession as him. What a coincidence!
The new moment calmed Vince down and he confessed to her – he had a very serious kidney illness. He also added that in case he does not find a donor by himself, his life will be in danger and he might end up going on dialysis. Nicole felt the pain Vince was struggling with and understood the fight he had to do in order to save his life.
Vine’s confession about him being afraid that he will leave his two daughters without father touched the Starbucks’ employee. When Nicole came back home, she told everything to her husband Justin. Without a second thought, Justin said to Nicole that Vince can count on his kidney. What a great man!
Regarding her husband’s decision, she adds:
“He cares about people almost more than any anybody I’ve ever met. He’s the kindest person I’ve ever met. So, when he said, ‘I’ll give my kidney,’ it seemed like, ‘OK, sure. Yeah, you will.’”
When Vince and Justin met to discuss the possibility, the two men immediately became like brothers. They started talking about the procedure, the expectations, the life and the hope that Justin brought to Vince’s life. Very soon they started hanging out and bonded like true friends usually do.
After some time, the moment of truth finally came. Both of them went to see the doctor and talked about the donation surgery. Since a surgery of this type is quite complex, the doctor had to explain all details to both of them, especially the conditions for successful surgery. The most crucial elements for a successful organ transplant were the blood type and the genetic code. Incredibly, Justin and Vince had the same blood type and their genetics were a match. The great news resulted with scheduling the procedure itself.
The success of the surgery was expected. Both of them felt very well and Vince finally got the second chance. He was at ease that he will not leave his family. He also was very grateful to Justin’s kindness and good-doing. Their friendship now is even stronger and their families have a happy and joyful life.
With more than 1.800 stores as of early 2019, Aldi is a serious player in the US food selling business. The chain of stores is expanding rapidly and their plan is to keep growing in terms of quantity and quality. They do have success on that plan. With around 1.500 stores prior to 2018, nowadays the number is higher than 1.800. However, that’s not the only excellent news from Aldi.
The management of Aldi informed their costumers that the company’s new policy is focusing more on healthy food offer. In other words, Aldi is trying to offer the people more organic food and products that are considered to be healthier. As a consequence to that, Aldi decided to remove eight pesticides from the US stores.
Their efforts have even been acknowledged by Business Insider. Business Insider especially pays attention to removing the synthetic colours and the sale of gluten-free products. In addition to that, Aldi’s commitment for increasing people’s awareness for healthy food is recognized as well.
The idea of establishing themselves as the number one food chain in terms of quality resulted with removing the following pesticides: Thiamethoxam, Chlorpyrifos, Clothianidin, Cypermethrin, Deltamethrin, Fipronil, Imidacloprid and Sulfoxaflor. This is actually a great piece of news!
Noteworthy is that this is not the first and the only measurement that Aldi has recently undertaken. During the last years Aldi’s management in the USA is working hard to offer healthier and organic food. First of all, Aldi expanded their organic food offers and removed certified synthetic colours. Additionally, the sales of fresh and organic meat and products has been increased and the milk that is offered in the stores is free of artificial growth hormones. All of these things really help establishing Aldi as the right place for healthy food shoppers.
The school years aren’t that easy for everyone to handle because teenagers have a lot on their plates. They really need to balance between being straight-A students who are expected to perform great during lesson time, and their social life that includes making friends. And as many find themselves in quite challenging situations they are expected to find a way out of all by themselves, students attending Lake Mary High School in Lake Mary, FL know there is someone they can always count on.
Dr. Donna “Mickey” Reynolds is the school’s principal and she believes that every student is special and treats each and every one of them as such. This principal, along with the school’s administration and the teachers take every opportunity to connect with the kids on a personal level.
“The only way to make sure that we have a healthy, safe school environment where kids can learn and thrive and feel a part of it is if we connect with every student. We have to make a concerted effort to make those connections; we’ve seen what happens when we don’t.”
The school has set up a program that involves nine graders who are experiencing certain difficulties in life and struggle with the school subjects. Every teacher gets involved and has the role of a personal advocate whose job is to provide these students with the academical and emotional support they need.
This time, however, they went an extra mile in their task of bonding with the students. The teens were at the school’s gym waiting for a game to start. They were ready to have some fun with the Lady Marionettes when something extraordinary happened. The teachers gathered together and prepared a show to remember. As the cheerleaders started their dance routine during pep rally, Dr.Reynolds and the rest of the staff joined the performance.
The person who came up with this amazing idea was Lady Marionettes’ coach, Stephanie Kersten. Once the staff were informed of this brilliant plan they were all more than happy to take part. They all believe this is just another way of telling their students they are always there for them.
“The teachers and staff members doing that really helped drop that line between them and their students. Those adults really, really want to connect with those kids in any way possible, even if it means going out there and making themselves vulnerable, dancing even if they can’t.” Coach Kersten said
We are aware how teachers are extremely important part of children’s life and have huge impact on the way their minds and their behavior are shaped, but we all have to agree how these particular educators really took things to a whole new level when it comes to connecting with the young souls, and we love it.
Take a look at the amazing performance in the video below.
If you think talent show competitors have a hard time impressing those four or five strict and demanding judges who are paid to tell them what their singing lacks, imagine having to impress 100 of them. The All Together Now music show that first aired in January 2018, requires exactly that. Singers that take the stage have to face TV’s biggest judging panel and convince every single one of them why they deserve a chance to get to another round of the competition.
Michael Rice, the winner of the first series really made everyone fall in love with his talent as he opted to present the cheering crowd with Tina Turner’s version of CCR’s “Proud Mary.” Everyone agreed how he couldn’t choose a song that would fit him better than this one.
He did feel stage fright once he stood in front of all those people but as soon as he let his voice loose, the judges realized he was one fierce competitor and treated him with clapping and dancing, which quickly made his initial nervousness fade away. However, besides getting all these music professionals to like him, he needed to beat 3 more contestants in the round.
But once he realized people liked him, nothing could really stop on his way of becoming a star.
This wasn’t the first time for Michael to perform in front of influential names in the music industry as he previously took part in similar shows among which The X FactorUK. He joined season 11 of the competition and performed Whitney Houston’s classic “I Look To You” but didn’t manage to get past the Bootcamp stage.
On the grand finale of All Together Now, Michael got a yes from 94 out of those 100 judges after singing a rendition of Leonar Cohen’s “Hallelujah” which was enough for him to win the title. The success he enjoyed after this competition was huge and he quickly got his name known among people from all around the globe.
He’s still pursuing his dream of becoming a big star and is set to represent the UK at this year’s Eurovision Song Contest that will be taking place in Tel Aviv, Israel. He’ll be performing a song titled “Bigger Than us” and we are sure he’s going to show the world how great of a singer he is.
Michael’s story is just a proof that one should never quit pursuing their goals. Take a look at his stunning performance in the video below.
