She was grieving. A neighbor knew precisely what to do.
The anonymous gesture changed everything.
It was late fall 2001, and Marcia Mangum Cronin’s father was dying of pancreatic cancer.
She wanted to be with him, especially to say goodbye. So that year, in early December, Marcia drove eight hours to visit him in the nursing home. Cancer had weakened him. He could no longer stand. It wouldn’t be long, she thought.
The end of life, however, can be unpredictable. Some people transition faster than expected. Others hang on for days that turn into months.
As Marcia drove home, she thought about her two girls, ages 7 and 9. Christmas was fast approaching. Would her family be able to celebrate it at home in Virginia? Or would they spend it in North Carolina at her father’s bedside or in a funeral home?
A week later, she had her answer.
He’d passed away during the night.
By now, it was mid-December. Christmas was 12 days away. Parenting, work, her father’s illness, and grief had robbed Marcia of the time and energy to keep her house organized and clean, not to mention put up a Christmas tree.
As she and her husband packed up and loaded the kids into the car, she glanced around. Clutter sat on every vertical surface. A noticeable layer of dust covered the television. If someone walked through the kitchen barefoot, they would surely end up with dog hair on their feet. The house was a mess.
What troubled Marcia the most: The Christmas decorations were still in the attic.
With a sigh, she put all of that out of her mind, got into the car, and started driving.
Days later, when the family returned, the house smelled different, like a mixture of lemon and pine.
Marcia looked around. What was up with the baseboards? She’d never closely looked at them before. Usually, they were just part of the backdrop. But they seemed different. Were they … clean?
The kitchen fixtures sparkled. The clutter was in neat piles. The dog hair? Gone. So was the dust on the television.
Her house was cleaner than she’d ever seen it.
In the kitchen, on the island, Marcia found a note.
“While you were gone, we cleaned your house, so you wouldn’t have to worry about that when you returned.”
“A whole day’s worth of cleaning was done,” Marcia told me. “It was so unexpected. I have never heard of someone doing that for someone else.”
Immediately, she felt lighter and less burdened.
“I usually don’t bring down the decorations until I dust the surfaces and vacuum,” Marcia explained. “Now I didn’t have to do that. I could just go up to the attic and get stuff out.”
The note wasn’t signed.
Still, Marcia was pretty sure her neighbor had done all of this. After all, she was the only person with a house key. Strangely, however, the note didn’t look like her neighbor had written it. The handwriting was different.
Regardless, Marcia walked over to thank her.
“Your house is clean?” the neighbor asked. “I didn’t do that. I only watered your plants and fed the dog, as you asked.”
At first, Marcia didn’t believe her. Of course, she’d cleaned the house! Who else would have done such a thing?
The more the neighbor claimed ignorance, however, the more Marcia believed her. The woman had four daughters that she homeschooled, along with a daycare she ran out of her home. How would she have found the time to clean and straighten Marcia’s two-story, 2,500-square-foot home?
For several days, Marcia queried friends and neighbors, searching for someone to thank.
No one would cop to the good deed.
She decided to see the anonymity of the gesture as a gift.
“It made me feel not indebted to anyone,” she told me. “I’m sure that was the intent. It being anonymous lifted the feeling that I needed to do something back in return.”
Now, 21 years later, Marcia still occasionally thinks about the day she returned to that clean home.
“It meant a whole lot that someone would do that for me at a time when I felt like I was drowning,” she says. “I suspect the person who did this doesn’t remember it 21 years later, but I still do. Kindness can have a huge impact.”
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