Debra Basham

Living and Loving

Tag: generosity

  • Jasper’s New Crate

    Sacred Stories

    She had recently gotten a new rescue dog. She named him Jasper.

    She met another woman who was walking her dog at the park.

    She mentioned she was going to go out of state to visit her father for the first time since Jasper had come into her family, so she needed to buy a crate.

    The woman volunteered, “My dog has just outgrown a crate. You can have it!”

    Benoit Mandelbrot said, “There is a saying that every nice piece of work needs the right person in the right place at the right time.”

    Here is a very contented Jasper looking dapper in his new crate.


  • Donate Platelets!

    Sacred Stories

    She had been feeling lonely and homesick for their previous home of 27 years, missing friends in particular. She began reflecting on the power of connection, even small conversations with those one doesn’t know well, in the course of daily life. She recalled the early days of Covid quarantine, wherein her daily walks brought nourishing and sustaining brief encounters with people she didn’t really know, or only knew slightly—and remembered how uplifting those small exchanges were. So, she resolved to start conversations with at least a few strangers she would encounter on that day’s walk—and she did!

    Out on her walk, she met a man wearing a T-shirt urging others to donate platelets — and her husband had just been scheduled to receive a transfusion of platelets, at least the 3rd or 4th such transfusion he has needed as a result of his blood cancer.

    So, she was able to thank the man personally, and give him a tangible piece of evidence of how much his lifesaving blood donations meant to another person in his community. She then learned that he had donated platelets over 350 times!


    Further, this man shared that he had had a heart attack and triple bypass just 3 weeks earlier, and was now on aspirin. So, he was in the process of determining how many days he would have to go without his aspirin in order to be able to donate again!

    As they parted after this personal and meaningful, though brief, conversation, the man said to her: “So many people have it so much worse than we do.” She was so touched and inspired by his ability to express this perspective, when he had narrowly escaped death just 3 weeks earlier!

  • 1,000 Pounds of Food

    Sacred Stories

    The headline read: Restaurant Gives Employees 1,000 Pounds of Food!

    The owner saw the writing on the wall.

    His family in Italy warned him. They said it would get worse, much worse, and it has. They told him to stay safe, to limit his contact with people, to keep his employees safe, too.

    “We are closed since Tuesday,” the owner said.

    “I knew this would be coming. I’m shocked it didn’t happen sooner.”

    Before he closed the doors, he ordered as much food as he could from his suppliers: 400 pounds of chicken breasts, 300 pounds of rice, 300 pounds of black beans, plus fruits, vegetables and pantry staples. Before laying off the entirety of his 70-person staff, he told them to take as much as they could.

    “I hope they can come back when this all passes,” he said.

    “It’s too risky for everybody. This is the best thing to do for everybody, no matter how much it hurts.”

  • N-95

    Sacred Stories

    A text came from a Michigan friend, also wintering in Florida. Everyone is navigating the COVID-19 pandemic.

    “BTW – Any connections locally for finding a mask for an ailing friend-of-a-friend who needs to fly home next week?”

    She asked her husband if he had seen a mask in the shed of the homeowner. He had not. Nor had she.

    “Let me ask,” she responded before quickly sending an email to one of the moderators of a Facebook page for the local community during the pandemic. Then she went out to the shed.

    There, on a hook behind a saw blade, was one single perfectly clean, unused, mask. Looking closely, this mask was the suggested rating: N-95.


    She sent a text message to the home owner, explaining the need of the mask and asking permission to pass it along. The home owner graciously said the person could have it!

    She quickly took a photo of the mask, sent it via text message to her friend who had made the request, sharing where the mask had been located so quickly.

    “Verrrry interesting,” her friend replied.

    “A SACRED STORY for sure! Please let your friend know,” she added.

    “Are you offering it?” came the inquiry.

    “OF COURSE. THIS mask is for your friend’s friend.”

  • Your Place in the Family of Things

    A few days ago, the mold saga continued as late in the evening our friend ripped up carpet preparing for solid flooring installation in the manufactured home she bought here in our park and found this:

    (see Lessons from the Mold)

    She was having a very difficult time navigating all of the uncertainty. I totally get that. I said I would come the following day while she was at work and I would get the rest of the carpeting up so she would know the scope of the problem.

    We are now lovingly calling my friend’s space ‘AREA 51’ as her home is located on Lot 51.

    It never occurred to me that evening I would know to ask for help even as I was giving help.

    There is a story of the Buddha when in a past life he offered himself as food to a hungry tiger and her cubs. The story says when you start off by sharing your dinner with the hungry tiger cub and then some years or lifetimes later, you are giving your dinner, it’s only a natural next step to simply give yourself. For one for whom there is a giver it would not be an appropriate action, it would create an unwholesome karma for both you and the tiger cub. What happens is at some point there is no giver and no one given to. You are not making a martyr of yourself, because there’s really no distinction between you and the hungry tiger. You see the being suffering and you give.

    The following morning, as I prepared to head over to her home, I spontaneously wrote a note to the guy across the street, “I need someone with strength at Lot 51 for a few minutes.” He arrived home from the gym as I was writing the note, so I walked across the street and knocked on his door. I pointed to the note, told him what happened, and said simply, “I could use your help ripping up the rest of the carpet.”

    He walked over as I drove. There he stood—with a large pair of pliers, a utility knife, and a snub-nosed spade. He was amazing…. He showed me how to use the spade, and by working together, in less than an hour, we had all carpet and pad removed.

    And we found NO additional mold. I sent my friend these photos:

    I came home to have some lunch and rest a bit. I wrote a ‘thank you’ note, slipped 3 twenty-dollar bills into it, and taped it on his door as I headed back to remove the tack strips, pull up the linoleum, and sweep up the mess.

    When I got back home the 3 twenty-dollar bills were in this envelope taped on my door:

    When I saw him later, he grinned and said, “I kept the card.”

      Wild Geese

      You do not have to be good.
      You do not have to walk on your knees
      for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
      You only have to let the soft animal of your body
      love what it loves.
      Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
      Meanwhile the world goes on.
      Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
      are moving across the landscapes,
      over the prairies and the deep trees,
      the mountains and the rivers.
      Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
      are heading home again.
      Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
      the world offers itself to your imagination,
      calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
      over and over announcing your place
      in the family of things.

      ~Mary Oliver