Have you ever noticed how the small things can turn into the big things? Like sometimes you do something tiny for someone else, but to that person, it’s like you did successful open heart surgery after they’d been told there was no hope for their bum ticker.

In the middle of September, my neighbor’s healthy 21 year old son, Sandro, with the greatest smile you have ever seen, went back to his senior year at Ohio Wesleyan University. He told his wrestling coach he was in pain, and the coach sent him to the ER, where an MRI found he had a tumor in his upper spine. He flew back to Boston with his mom Jennifer,who’d gotten herself to Ohio as soon as she heard. A few days later, Sandro has a 9 plus hour surgery to remove the tumor. A week later, he spiked a hight fever and the doctors found he had a blood clot, which was removed in and emergency surgery. That’s when things started to go sideways, because after that surgery, he lost his ability to use his legs. And then, to keep that bad news company, the next day the pathology came back, announcing his tumor was rare, aggressive, and malignant.

When do I get to the good part? Is that what you’re wondering?

Well, I started a meal sign up thingy so that Jennifer and Scott, Sandro’s stepdad could focus on him and not making dinner, and people signed up for every slot within days. And then, together with Jennifer and Scott, I created a Go Fund Me, because there were things Sandro was going to need that were not going to be covered by insurance. (A lot of things.) We all put it on our socials and sent it to our friends and family and hot damn, people started to donate. Not just friends, not just people who knew Sandro, or his family, but people who’d never met any of them before.

The Go Fund Me numbers started to climb. People were posting encouraging words. Every day more and more people were giving. Some donations were just five dollars. Some were more than a thousand.The amount didn’t matters as much as the giving. And the messages.The family was overwhelmed with all sorts gratitude. It was something so positive in the middle of something so negative. Humans helping other humans. THAT’S THE GOOD PART.

That’s the part that, in the midst of our wildly insane world, of all the shit things that are claiming to pass for normal these days, makes me feel like there is still goodness pulsating through the land. Because, you see, people caring about people they don’t know is its own kind of medicine. It’s an RX that delivers hope when things feel utterly hopeless. And not just hope for Sandro and his family, but hope for all of us.

It can be hard to know how to make the world better right now, because let’s face it, there are a lot of options!. But if you can just be nice, lead with your heart and help someone, in a small, medium, or large way, you are doing something big. If you can just show care toward a person you don’t even know, with a little love and a little wink, you are doing something powerful that can create change. If you can just try every day to do one itsy bitsy good thing that will improve someone else’s life, you’re doing something fucking transformative.

And so this year, I set aside the mashed potatoes I normally give my gratitude to on this holiday, and I give it to those people who have given to Sandro’s Go Fund Me, who’ve given to the homeless man in Kenmore Square who is there every morning with his sign, who’ve helpsed an elderly person with their groceries, or their leaves, or their computer problems, who’ve let’s the other car go, even though it’s in the wrong, who ‘ve smiled at someone on the train who looks like they might have just lost a friend, or a vital organ, who’ve said “Thank you,” ” I’m sorry,”or “Can I help you?” to a total stranger, or a person they know, or someone they love, who’ve done a thing to make someone else’s life better. Gratitude to you. Gratitude to you, who are leading with love, feeling your humanity, and reminding me that there is still good, and that maybe, just maybe that good can kick the ass of all the bad that keeps threatening to take over.

Hoping your Thanksgiving is spent with all those people you love, and lots and lots and LOTS of mashed potatoes.

If you’d like to donate to Sandro’s Go Fund Me, just click https://gofund.me/442f2044