No real point in posting this, I suppose. Just thought I'd share.
So I'm not usually one to spend too much time talking about my personal issues, but there is a variable in this one that I just find remarkable.
We just found out, a little while ago, that my ex (my baby's mom) has been diagnosed with Castleman's Disease and has a tumor on her heart. There was a time where she was in danger of dying (which she still may be, if she has any complications with her open-heart surgery) and, at 24, she's been going through chemotherapy to try to rid her of the tumor (which isn't exactly working, because chemo is for cancer patients, and her condition is so rare that the only thing they can do is treat her like cancer patient even though Castleman's is "like" cancer, but not exactly.), and has really gone through a lot lately. On top of that, her husband - who was once (or "is" ... I haven't quite figure that out yet) a close friend of mine - is losing his father, who is in a coma after a bad car accident a couple of months ago.
Together, they have 2 kids of their own, along with my daughter, who lives with them throughout the week. With everything that has happened, they have been struggling just to keep a roof over their head - between hospital fees and transportation costs to get too and from each respective hospital (for treatments and visitations). Her husband has also just recently lost his job, due to "corporate restructuring," as a result of the economy, so they are in a really bad position right now.
I say all of that to give context to this:
My best friend knows about their situation, and happens to work with a woman who was telling him about how she often likes to help out families in need. Every now and then, when she can spare it, she just goes around and helps those that she can, with what she can, just out of the kindness of her heart. She refuses to accept acknowledgement, and just likes to do what she does, completely anonymously. Well, my friend happened to get into conversation with her about "this family that he knows" and she basically dropped everything she had planned and asked if she would be prying too much if she offered to do something nice for the family my friend was talking about. She figured that she'd much rather help someone that he knew (being somewhat close to him), than just any random family in an equally stressing situation. He got with me and got info about all of the kids (sizes, ages, etc). He gave the info to her and she basically just brought them all a bunch of stuff, just to help them know that there are people out there looking out for them - to give them hope:

Again, she refuses to accept any kind of recognition, so she simply marked all of the presents as "From Santa" and asked us to keep her annonymity, when giving them the gifts. Even I don't know what's in them (except for the teddy bears for the kids, which were already opened), but most of them feel pretty heavy, and seem to be reasonably valuable gifts, even throwing in some gift cards for groceries that should last them a while.
I just think that this is absolutely amazing that this woman does this for strangers, asking nothing in return. Seriously. The presents aren't exactly coming to me, but I'm still writing her a letter of thanks. We need more people like this in the world. I know how hard my daughter's mom and step/half family have it right now, and I just love the fact that there are people still willing to go out of their way to bring unselfish support to those who really need it.
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