Janice Dean shares inspiring stories of everyday heroes in new book
Fox News senior meteorologist Janice Dean previews 'Make Your Own Sunshine.'
I have been reading and reporting about good news stories for many years now, and I thought I had seen my share of spreading sunshine, but then coronavirus happened as I was halfway through writing my book "Make Your Own Sunshine," and incredibly, I started to notice more stories than ever before about kindness and goodwill of others during this time of crisis.
It’s one of the main themes I’ve seen in my own experience and documenting others’ that it is during the most challenging times – and the darkest of moments when the goodness of others shines the brightest.
As we were all in quarantine, socially distancing ourselves from the world and each other, I was talking by phone and video-chat to some inspiring people.
I interviewed Rebecca Mehra from Washington State who bought groceries for an elderly couple in the parking lot who were too afraid to go in to get items themselves.
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Robertino Rodriguez, the respiratory therapist who decided to attach a picture of himself smiling on his PPE so that his patients would know what he looked like underneath his head-to-toe medical scrubs and mask.
Even during the darkest days, one small gesture of goodness can lighten up any mood or atmosphere. And sometimes it only takes a few seconds to make sunshine and pass it on.
And North Carolina principal Tabari Wallace who decided to go door to door to congratulate each of his students who couldn’t have a proper graduation thanks to the coronavirus lockdown.
These kinds of stories were happening everywhere. The huge cheers and banging of pots and pans you heard every night that was also featured on all the nighttime newscasts originating from apartment buildings at 7 p.m. to salute our health care workers as they changed shifts.
The opera singers from balconies serenading audiences of next-door neighbors instead of the opera halls they usually performed in with thousands of people.
We found out in this pandemic that kindness is also contagious.
Many of you know that my family experienced tremendous grief as we were all locked down and tragically lost both of my husband’s parents in late March and April to coronavirus.
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We, along with thousands of other families experienced death without being able to see our loved ones before they died, unable to have funerals or celebrate their lives in the traditional ways we normally do to help in the grieving process.
However, as we look back at these months of pain, there are also moments of incredible kindness and sunshine that helped us get through it.
I found that writing this book and sharing the stories I was working on with my family brought joy and comfort during these unprecedented times.
Complete strangers that I was doing interviews with became instant friends and I would feel so happy having that human connection even if it was just virtually through a zoom chat.
We can be so powerful as humans when we are kind to each other. And it doesn’t have to be big things -- it can just be little moments between two people, like the story of the FedEx driver Justin Bradshaw that took a few minutes to wipe down a package in hopes of protecting a compromised daughter.
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Or, it can affect a group that causes a chain reaction towards others like Seth Stewart who sends roses to people who have lost their loved ones on Valentine’s Day. From that chain reaction, a spark so powerful can begin a movement that spreads into communities or even across the world.
The story of my friend Ray Pfeifer, a 9/11 survivor that made sure his fellow brothers and sisters would be taken care of when diagnosed with World Trade Center illnesses. He spent the last year of his life, sick with cancer banging his cane and charging his wheelchair down the hallways of Congress to make sure they passed the bill to help first responders diagnosed with the same thing he would later die of.
No matter how big or small, all of it is important. We just have to look around for that light sometimes to hold onto.
Finding those moments is what I call "making your own sunshine." And the light from others will always help guide our way.
Even during the darkest days, one small gesture of goodness can lighten up any mood or atmosphere. And sometimes it only takes a few seconds to make sunshine and pass it on.
The forecast always needs a little more kindness and love.
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So, I wrote a book that is filled with hope and happiness, and sometimes like life, that happiness and sunshine have to come after the stormiest moments.
Because one thing I’ve learned, as long as we have love and kindness, there will be sunshine too.
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