Woman celebrates late husband's birthday with day of kindness

MISHAWAKA, Ind. –

Thursday marked a day that Kim Becker had celebrated for years as her husband’s birthday, but when he passed nearly two years ago, she had to find a way to get through the day. Now she’s working to make the date a day to spread kindness.

“My late husband would have been 58 years old today. We are creating random acts of kindness today so our goal is to create 58 of them,” said Becker.

Becker packed up a van with small gifts, cookies, and candy bars and went out in hopes to put a smile on someone’s face.

“I asked myself what can I do to get me through the day? I thought what better way than just run around town and smile because you knew that someone was on the receiving end of a blessing,” she said.

She set out with her family, putting candy bars in the drive thru at multiple banks, paying it forward at drive thru restaurants and stopping in at multiple businesses. A card honoring her late husband Mike accompanied each of those acts of kindness.

“I feel like remembering him on his birthday and blessing other people is just truly what he wanted to do,” said Becker. “He loved to give. He would have given somebody the last five dollars in his pocket. That’s just who he was.”

Becker says it gave her a chance to be excited for the day, rather than to wish it away.

“It’s been so fun just to be able to hand people something that they’re not expecting. To go out of their way, I think in today’s world we need that.”

Now she’s asking that the community join in to spread a little more kindness.

“Michael and I, we had a great life together. I was always the goer and the doer and at the end of the day if I got everything crossed off my to do list and I felt like we had a good day we’d be laying in bed at the end of the night and I would say to him you know today’s a good day. And he would say, “Every day is a good day.” And I want everybody to know that. It doesn’t matter what you’re going through, every day is a good day.”

Becker says she hopes to make March 6 a day of kindness every year, and hopes for the tradition to grow. 

For more information or to print a card to pass along, click here.