There is perhaps nothing as important as being kind to others. Teaching children when they are young that they should be kind to those around them is imperative. And this story about a toddler giving out a hug to the pizza delivery man shows you just how far kindness can go…
Keep reading to read this heartwarming tale which reminds you that there is still good in this world.
On February 15, 2020, Lindsey Sheely from West Warwick, Rhode Island ordered some pizza from her favorite pizzeria called Wicked Good Pizza. As she grabbed the pizza from the delivery driver and paid for the order, her then two-year-old toddler Cohen, ran after the delivery guy and said “Bye-bye!”
Just as the pizza delivery man was about to step off the porch, the toddler stretched out his arm and gestured to the man for a hug. The interaction was caught on the family’s doorbell camera where Sheely later shared to Instagram.
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“We thought it was so sweet and funny,” she wrote in the caption. “I hope it gives you a laugh and warms your heart like it did for us.”
After she posted the video, she received a message from a man named Ryan Catterson who told Sheely that he had been their pizza delivery driver that night. He asked if he could share the video on his Facebook page as well.
Upon receiving his message, Sheely looked at Catterson’s profile and was shocked by what she saw. A post about a GoFundMe page having been set up for the funeral expenses of Catterson’s 16-year-old daughter, Alyssa. Just a week after his daughter’s death, he was working.
Catterson had lost his daughter just a week before his interaction with Cohen.
“After losing my daughter this past week, it touched me because it was like she was there. It really just meant a lot to me,” Catterson told the media about Cohen’s actions.
He called Cohen’s hug to him, a “little blessing from God.”
“I believe in divine appointments and know that Ryan was the one to deliver our pizza for a reason,” Sheely said.
“Just that it was the perfect timing for it, I had been telling my kids and the whole family how much I needed hugs before they came and then that sweet little boy gave me one,” he said in an interview with NBC 10 News. “It was almost as if the universe or my daughter had known and sent it to me.”
The video of the toddler and pizza delivery man’s interaction was trending on Facebook which led Sheely to update the description to include the link for the GoFundMe page set up for Alyssa.
She said, “I couldn’t believe that this guy was going through the most devastating thing, but his life was still going on. His life had to go forward, and he still had to work and to do his job,” she told the outlet. “You never know what people are going through. This is such a good example of that.”
According to reports, Alyssa struggled with mental health problems for much of her short life.
“If I could tell the world one thing, it’s to make sure you check on your kids constantly, because you never know what they might be struggling with internally,” Catterson said in a statement he wrote to Sheely.
This story is such a stark reminder of the important of kindness. We never know what someone is going through, it is so important to always be gentle with other people!
Share this heartwarming story with others to remind them the importance of kindness as well.
