Friends, we are a little worn out from feeling and fearing lately. If you have dug yourself a hole and turned off the internet and aren’t reading this, we feel you. But, if you’re still here, we figured we would try to brighten your day with some recent stories of humans being good and kind and decent. YES IT DOES STILL EXIST.
First, if you haven’t watched this absolutely beautiful interview with Coco Gauff after losing to Naomi Osaka at the U.S. Open, you simply must. We’ve written about Gauff before — she’s the 15-year-old tennis phenom who has amazing parents. When she lost to Osaka last weekend, Osaka asked her to participate in the post-match interview, though Gauff knew she was going to cry during it. It’s all loving and good and you should watch it and then maybe find someone to mentor.
Second, an autistic boy had a very bad flight with his parents recently, but the United Airlines crew and passengers rallied around four-year-old Braysen Gabriel. They sat with him, talked to him, showed him pictures, let him wander the plane so that he could decompress. Screaming kids usually aren’t welcome on planes, but these people saw an opportunity to help an upset child and his overwhelmed parents and took it.
Third, here are two seven-year-olds who are using a lemonade stand to raise money to feed the homeless. Cousins Mallorie and Brookelynn Iwu have raised $2,000 with their stand in north Texas. And we are very excited by their “When life gives you lemons…” shirts!
Fourth, it’s Beyonce’s birthday week! That’s something we can ALL celebrate.
Finally, musician David Byrne recently launched a new newsletter and website called Reasons to be Cheerful, because he was getting depressed by the news, too. Sounds like a good idea to us. Sign. Us. Up.