Heart-Warming Human Interest Stories for the Holidays

A sweet kiss
(credit: popsugar.com)

During the holiday season, it’s not uncommon for an influx of human-interest stories demonstrating the good in humankind to circulate around the Internet. These stories touch our hearts deeply. They teach us the meaning of being better and more generous to our fellow humans and allow us to reflect on the blessings in our lives for which we should be grateful every day and never take for granted.

We thought our readers might enjoy a selection of some truly touching stories about some quite inspirational people.

One amazing story is of an Iowa woman named Brenda Schmitz—a mother of four sons—who was dying from ovarian cancer and decided to write a letter with three wishes for her family and her oncologists a month before her death, that she sent to the local radio station. The catch, however, was that the friend to whom she gave the letter could not mail it until her husband had fallen in love again. Fast forward to two years later and as part of the radio station’s Christmas Wish program, Brenda’s husband was brought in and told about the letter. Watch the video below to learn more about the story, his reaction to the letter, what Brenda’s wishes were and examples of how Brenda’s presence still appears to this day. Brenda’s love, goodwill and gratitude clearly shine through in her beautiful letter.

Another wonderful story is a community that came together for a little seven year-old girl named Laney who was dying of leukemia to grant one of her wishes to listen to Christmas carols. After her family posted updates about her worsening condition—a prognosis of only weeks left to live right before her eighth birthday and Christmas—on her Facebook page, a caroling event for the Saturday evening before Christmas was created to occur outside the family home and the power of social media brought almost 10,000 carolers to perform Christmas carols and a belated “Happy Birthday.” A few days later, on Christmas Day, Laney lost her battle with leukemia.

Christmas carols for Laney
(Credit: http://hot92and100.com)

A final story tells us of an ad requesting some companionship during the holidays that an elderly Irish man places in a local paper. While he initially receives little response,a Christmas miracle cam true for him thanks to one journalist’s desire to share his story and request with all of Ireland and the world. At age 85, the elderly retired butler, James Gray—without any family and most of his friends having died—was stuck at home due to limited mobility and strongly desired some good company during the holidays. As he quoted to The Irish Post, “this time of year is so hard if you are old and alone because it feels like everybody else around you is enjoying themselves.” Instead of repeating his usual routine of being alone, he placed an ad in the Post yet receiving disappointing results until journalist Niall O’Sullivan wrote a story about him and readers began sending him cards, letters and invitations to get together for Christmas from all around the world—well over a thousand of them. Some people even sent gifts like whiskey and toffee pennies. This story reminds us that goodwill exists all around the world when it comes to helping others feel happier during the holidays when celebrating them can be especially rough when we’re dealing with grief, loss or even dealing with the consequences of old age.

You can check out more news and stories here.