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A mother's letter on the passing of her young daughter is a must-read on grief, love and loss

Havi Lev Goldstein left a lifetime of memories in just over two years.

A mother's letter on the passing of her young daughter is a must-read on grief, love and loss

Upworthy is sharing this letter from Myra Sack on the anniversary of the passing of her daughter Havi Lev Goldstein. Loss affects everyone differently and nothing can prepare us for the loss of a young child. But as this letter beautifully demonstrates, grief is not something to be ignored or denied. We hope the honest words and feelings shared below can help you or someone you know who is processing grief of their own. The original letter appeared on 1.20.22. It begins below:


Dear Beauty,

Time is crawling to January 20th, the one-year anniversary of the day you took your final breath on my chest in our bed. We had a dance party the night before. Your posse came over. Aunts, uncles, grandparents, closest friends, and your loving nanny Tia. We sat in the warm kitchen with music on and passed you from one set of arms to another. Everyone wanted one last dance with you. We didn’t mess around with only slow songs. You danced to Havana and Danza Kuduro, too. Somehow, you mustered the energy to sway and rock with each of us, despite not having had anything to eat or drink for six days. That night, January 19th, we laughed and cried and sang and danced. And we held each other. We let our snot and our tears rest on each other’s shoulders; we didn’t wipe any of them away. We ate ice cream after dinner, as we do every night. And on this night, we rubbed a little bit of fresh mint chocolate chip against your lips. Maybe you’d taste the sweetness.

Reggaeton and country music. Blueberry pancakes and ice cream. Deep, long sobs and outbursts of real, raw laughter. Conversations about what our relationships mean to each other and why we are on this earth.



This is grief in our home.

We lost our first-born daughter, Havi Lev Goldstein, on January 20th, 2021, at 9:04am. She died peacefully in our bed, in our arms. She died from a cruel disease called Tay-Sachs, that strips your mind and body of every function over 12-18 months. Havi was two years, four months and sixteen days old when she died.

My husband, Matt Goldstein, and I underwent preconception genetic testing for Tay-Sachs disease. We are both Ashkenazi Jewish, a population that has a higher risk for having a mutation in the gene that causes Tay-Sachs. We took our genetic testing very seriously. My testing results came back showing that I was a carrier; Matt’s results said he was not. Given the autosomal recessive nature of the disease, both parents need to be carriers for the fetus to be at risk of inheriting the disease. Months later, we were pregnant with our first child.

Tragically, Matt received the wrong test, and his carrier status was mis-reported. Matt was in fact, a carrier for Tay-Sachs. 15 months into her life, we learned that our daughter, Havi, was now a victim of this fatal, progressive neurodegenerative disease. In an instant, we were transformed from being not only first-time parents, but now first-time parents of a dying child.

From the date of Havi’s diagnosis, December 17th, 2019, to her death on January 20th, 2021, we followed her lead. She never spoke a word, never walked a single step. But she communicated powerfully through smiles and tears, through the brightness of her eyes and the back-and-forth movements of her head. She loved, deeply. And when you closed your eyes and listened closely, her voice was clear.

Havi taught us that life can be even more beautiful and painful than we ever imagined. And when we live at the edge of that deepest beauty and deepest pain, then everything—our hearts, our world view, our community—will deepen and expand.

We honored Havi’s life every Friday night with family and friends in a celebration that we called Shabbirthday. The word is a combination of Shabbat and Birthday. Havi’s favorite food, the only food that she ever crawled toward, was challah, the braided Jewish bread that we eat every Shabbat. And we knew that her birthdays would be limited to two. That was not enough. We wanted more. So we threw Havi 57 Shabbirthdays before she died. Balloons, cakes, beach walks, fancy dinners, always a challah, and beautiful songs and prayers. We didn’t pretend to be happy on these Shabbirthdays. We weren’t. We were heart broken. We didn’t throw parties to distract or numb the pain. We found moments of beauty and celebration embedded in and between our deepest pain. We knew we needed the love and support of our closest people right there with us, too. And we treated every moment as sacred, not scary. As holy, not superficial.

This is grief in our home.

Since Havi’s death, we continue to honor Shabbirthdays every Friday. Now, we read poems, listen to Cole Swindell’s, ‘You Should Be Here’, and close our eyes tightly to try and recall the feeling of her wrapped tightly in our arms. Sometimes it’s hard to breathe. Sometimes I don’t want to open my eyes at the end of the song. And sometimes, I feel okay. Sometimes I can even smile through the song and cuddle with our beautiful younger daughter, Kaia. Whatever the feelings are, however the anguish of grief is manifesting, I pay attention.

Havi’s story is for anyone who has lost the person they love most in this world; for anyone who has watched someone they love lose their beloved; or for anyone who has yet to be touched by their own tragic loss and is open to learning about what it might feel like for them one day.

For me, Havi’s death is not a one-time event. It happens over and over again every moment she is not where she is supposed to be: Picking out a mismatched set of clothes that look adorable anyway; walking into preschool with her little hand gripping my index finger; pausing between the slides and the swings for a few bites of fig bar at the playground; playing with her little sister who looks up in admiration at her god given best friend. The losses are layered and constant. And they will accrue, every day, and on every missed milestone until the day I die. I’m not sure people understand that about losing a young child.

I think that the only way to be okay is to keep inviting our dead into those spaces, to keep them present in those moments where they should be. And not in a delusional way, either. Only in a way that helps us to create new memories and experiences with them since their life on this earth was so tragically short. Relationships don’t have to end when the physical ends. We don’t need to relegate them to the margins. As our therapist, Dr. Joanne Cacciatore puts it: We keep them right in the front row. From that place, they can participate actively in the life they were meant to have. And we can be proud to include them in it. And they can continue to encourage us to live a life of fullness and in service to others.

Even after only one year on this earth without Havi, my relationship with her has undergone profound and deepening changes. In the same way that relationships in the world of the living require immense attention and constant adjustments, so too, do our relationships with our dead. There are moments when I can still feel the touch of Hav’s softest cheeks against mine and there are also moments when I feel far away from her. There are times when I can hear her voice in my head and in my heart and times when the silence is everywhere even though I’m begging for her to show up.

A lot of this journey is a solitary one but it’s made so much easier when other people in our lives keep Havi present. This looks like so many beautiful things: Havi’s name written in the sand; outfits in the color purple; beautiful sunsets over mountains filled with wild flowers; a glass raised ‘To Hav’ before dinner begins; photographs on a bookshelf; text messages on important dates; acts of kindness in the spirit of a beautiful little girl. We do not need to ‘move on’ and we never will. We want to be joined in existing in the space where love and pain coexist for that is the space where we are closest to Hav. We, we all, can be changed forever by the power of loss. Falling into its embrace can make us more powerful, more productive, more alive, and more human. But that growth is ours to discover and cannot be rushed, or forced.

I wish we were kinder to grieving people. I wish we understood that grief is not scary. Losing Havi is the worst possible thing I could have ever imagined as a new mother. It is tragic and unnatural. But what is natural is to want to keep her close to us, to want to make her proud, to want to make the world better in her name, to want other people to know and love her. Those are all natural, quite beautiful, instincts that keep grieving people feeling like they can be okay and maybe even that they can become bigger and better versions of themselves.

I know my relationship with grief, and with Havi, is going to change many more times in my lifetime. I only hope that there will be more safe places to inhabit my suffering when it does.

Children are not supposed to die before their parents. But they do. And they do in this country, they do in all of our neighborhoods. And there are thousands of children, and their parents, who deserve a dance party filled with deep soulful sobs, uncontrollable laughter, and the rhythm of the music keeping us all on our feet for one more day. Most importantly, they deserve to be remembered.

This article originally appeared on 1.20.22

A photo collage from the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

It's really interesting what nearly 35 years does to the lens of perspective. When my friend invited me to join her family for their once-a-month movie night, she asked which John Hughes movie she should show her 14-year-old twins. The answer was obvious. It had to be something fun, school-related, and iconic. Ferris Bueller's Day Off seemed to be the perfect choice as we Gen X-ers loved it when we were exactly their age in 1986.

The fraternal twins (one boy, one girl) sat down on a rare early Saturday evening when neither had dance practice or a sleepover. We gathered in our comfy clothes, popped some popcorn, and hit "rent now."

They were excited by the opening scene, where an adorable Matthew Broderick (doesn't matter what generation one is, he transcends them all) is pretending to be sick in bed with worrying parents. His sister Jeanie is suspicious and exhausted by his antics, but Ferris prevails. He then proceeds to give a brilliant monologue about eating life up and living in the moment. His now-famous line, Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it,” is still plastered in quote books and on Bumble profiles.

The twins seemed inspired, and one of them actually teared up in the first five minutes.

The opening scene from Ferris Bueller's Day Off.www.youtube.com, Paramount Pictures, Film Studies Fundamntals

Spoilers ahead: the movie is pretty simple. Ferris is a super cool high school kid with a beautiful girlfriend, Sloane, played by Mia Sara. His best friend is a depressed hypochondriac named Cameron, who is played to perfection by Alan Ruck. Ferris skips school a lot (nine times!) and grabs each day by the neck. There are themes of Hedonism, Nihilism, and Taoism, but neither of the twins mentioned that.

The first thing both kids DID bring up (after being delighted by the shower monologue) was how privileged the characters were. Affluent Chicago suburbs, after all, was the setting John Hughes knew best. They also noted, as many have over the years, that Ferris seemed rather selfish and insensitive to what others in his life wanted and needed.

Ferris Bueller, 80s movies, Gen X, Gen ZA Ferris Buellers Day Off Film GIFGiphy Paramount Pictures

There have been many conversations over the years about Cameron being the true hero of the film. He has a story arc, unlike Ferris, that is unwavering. He's sad, but pushes through it and even gets the guts up to stand up to his father after a Ferrari incident.

In fact, there was a theory that Ferris was a figment of Cameron's imagination—a Fight Club scenario, if you will. Robert Vaux writes on CBR, "The theory holds that the entire day is a fantasy taking place in Cameron's head while he lies sick in bed. His sickness actually supports the theory: once Ferris comes over, it vanishes, and Cameron plunges energetically, if reluctantly, into the events of the day. According to the theory, it's because there are no events of the day. He's still sick at home, and the whole thing is a daydream."

cameron, ferris bueller's day off, 80s movies, john hughes, gen x, gen zCameron GIF in Ferris Buellers Day Off 80SGiphy, Paramount Pictures

I fully expected the twins to have similar thoughts. If not the Fight Club part, at least the idea that Cameron was the true protagonist. But what they (both of them) said instead was shocking. "No," the daughter told me. "I mean, I liked Ferris and I loved Cameron. But it's Jeanie who's the hero here."

Jeanie, the sister mentioned earlier, was played with pure rage by Jennifer Grey. She spends most of the movie attempting to narc on Ferris rather than enjoying her own beautiful day. She is angry and determined until…she meets a "bad boy" at the county jail, played complete with bloodshot eyes by Charlie Sheen.

Taken aback, their mom pushed back. "Jeanie, the sister? Why?"

The son answers, "She just changes the most. She starts out, like, having it in for Ferris. Really, having it in for EVERYONE. And then she just like figures it out." The daughter adds, "Yeah, in the end she was rooting for Ferris. She came the farthest from where she started and she's the one who kinda saved him."

Jennifer Grey meets Charlie Sheen in Ferris Bueller's Day Off.www.youtube.com, Paramount Pictures, Tvoldy23

Gobsmacked, I turned to Reddit for more answers. In the subreddit r/movies, someone recently posted, "Something I noticed about Ferris Bueller's Day Off." They then proceed to drive the Cameron theory forward. "At the start of the film, Cameron is in bed sickly and not really confident in himself, but as the movie progresses, he starts to get more confidence, and by the end, he gains the courage to stand up to his father."

A Redditor replies with this thoughtful answer: "I've heard it called a flat character arc when the protagonist doesn't change but is instead the catalyst for those around them to change. It's hard to pull off but is often the most satisfying kind of character. Ted Lasso (especially in season one) is a good example."

Others echo that idea, offering up characters like Forrest Gump and The Dude from The Big Lebowski. They stayed exactly the same while the world or others in their lives changed around them. It's described on a YouTube clip as "The moment you realize the main character is not actually the main character."

The movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off is dissected. www.youtube.com, Paramount Pictures, CinemaStix

This would give credence to the twins' opinion. But I'd never heard anyone choose Jeanie before, and they weren't swayed by Grey's performance in Dirty Dancing because they haven't seen it yet. When pressed one more time, their answer didn't change. "No doubt, it's the sister. She should have a spinoff." Their mom was so proud and we all totally agree.

Canva Photos

A viral TikTok argues that women don't want to give up the joy of their own personal peace and freedom for anyone.

There's been a lot of discourse on the state of modern dating and a lot of theories on why it seems harder than ever for people to find connection with romantic partners. Could it be that the achievement and education gaps between men and women are altering the dynamics? Have social media and dating apps broken our brains and hearts? Do we all have unrealistic expectations and unlimited options, leading to never feeling satisfied with anything or anyone?

Those are all intriguing options, but an alternate theory has recently arisen that's quickly gaining steam: Maybe being single isn't as lonely as we think. Maybe being single is actually freaking awesome.

A guy on TikTok who goes by Get To the Point Bro shared a hilarious monologue on why women who have been single for a long time "don't want to date anymore." Women say he absolutely nailed it.

the office, andy bernard, dating, relationships, dating advice, single, romance, loveThe Frenchman's monologue was absolutely spot onGiphy

At first, it might seem like he's poking fun, either at single women or at the men who can't seem to win them over. But not so! What he's done is perfectly captured the joy many people find in being single and, frankly, able to do whatever the hell they want.

"Some women have been single for so long they don't date anymore, they grant you access to their peaceful little empire like a reluctant queen handing you a visitor's badge," he says. "You text her good morning and she's already annoyed, like 'Why are you disturbing the sacred silence of my personal growth journey?'"

He goes on, "Bro she's been sleeping diagonally in her bed for three years, she's not giving up that territory because you opened the door and paid for coffee."

"You plan a cute date, she's thinking 'That sounds nice but also I could stay home, deep clean my apartment, do a 12 steps skincare routine, order sushi and not have to listen to a man breathe.'"

"You try to check in emotionally, 'How are you feeling?' She's feeling fantastic because you're not here."

"You're not competing with other guys. There are no other guys. You're competing with her weighted blanket, her peace, her cat named Chairman Meow, and the simple joy of not having to share her fries."

These are just a few of the best lines from the nearly 2-minute rant, all delivered in the most amazing French accent you can imagine. Please, enjoy:


@gettothepointbro

DATING A GIRL WHO IS USED TO BE ALONE CAN BE VERY HARD .

The best thing about the video is the discussion in the comments. Women want to know how this man got access to this top-secret information. The rant is so eerily, frighteningly accurate that women are convinced this French guy is living in their heads. That, or someone's secretly leaking intel.

"dammit. somebody call a meeting of the council. he knows too much."

"I dont often offer this compliment to the male species but you explained it better than I ever could."

"Alright, who’s told him this info??? So exposed right now"

"The joy of sleeping diagonally across my bed cannot be fully explained."

"This is the most accurate profiling I’ve ever heard. You absolutely ailed it."

Clearly, we've tapped into a real phenomenon here.

@gettothepointbro

CAN YOU RELATE LADIES ? THAT’S WHY WE LOVE YOU ❤️

The truth is that many people—both men and women—are disillusioned with the sad state of the dating scene these days. App burnout is a real thing, and meeting new people in real life is a ton of work. So, it's no surprise that more and more people are just choosing to stay single and enjoy all the perks that come along with it. This is a stark change, especially for women.

According to FiveThirtyEight, "Women were also more likely than men to say that they weren’t dating because they have other priorities right now." Priorities like travel, career, friendship, and even just self-care—all things that wind up taking a backseat when people get involved in relationships. It wasn't too long ago that women of a certain age that were still single were called "spinsters," but that word has lost a significant amount of power. This new generation of women aren't embarrassed or ashamed to be single; they're loving it for exactly all the reasons this video describes.

This article originally appeared in April.

A stressed millennial mom and her parents.

The baby boomer generation is often called the "Me Generation" because after the social upheaval of the ‘60s, they began to focus on themselves, prioritizing wealth accumulation, personal growth, self-help programs, and fitness. Now that baby boomers are grandparents, some millennials aren’t too happy that the Me Generation has taken that ethos into their golden years.

Although it’s important not to paint every generation member with the same brush, many older millennial parents feel that their baby boomer parents, known for being the least involved in recent history, are acting the same way as grandparents. Mother Phyllis, a popular TikToker with much to say about boomer grandparents, recently shared a video about how her parents live 40 minutes away and put very little effort into being grandparents, but brag about how much they love their grandchildren on social media.

The crux of Phyllis’ point is that older millennials had grandparents involved in their lives, but their parents don’t have the same dedication.

@motherphyllis

Can anyone else relate?????? I should’ve said absent grandmother’s not grandparents but y’all know what I mean 🤣 #fyp #fypシ #fypage #viral #fyp #viral #millennial #boomer #momlife #mom #sahm #funny @laneige_us

“My mom comes over for her yearly visit and snaps a picture of the kids. Or sometimes she doesn't even do that. She'll just take a picture off my Facebook page, post it to her Facebook page, and say, 'I love hanging out with my grandkids so much,'" Phillis says in a video with over 200,000 views. “They're so amazing. And then her friends comment and say, ‘Being a grandparent is so amazing, it's just so great.’” Phyillis adds that when she had a child, her boomer parents didn’t show much interest in helping after her birth, saying that helping out was her husband's job.

millennials, baby boomers, baby boomer grandparents, absentee grandparents, generational complaints, active grandparentsA boomer grandma ready to post on Facebook.via Canva/Photos

The post resonated with many people in the comments who are having the same struggles with their boomer parents. "Their parents raised us. They didn’t even want to be parents, so they’re sure as hell not gonna be grandparents," Kim wrote. "I mean, you think having boomer grandparents are bad, try having them raise you. Generation X basically raised ourselves because they’re busy," Queen added.

A big reason why parents like Phyliis feel betrayed by their parents for refusing to be involved in their children’s lives is that they probably had grandparents who were involved in theirs. Many older millennials and Gen Xers had grandparents involved in their upbringing, providing daycare, babysitting, and making social visits, because their grandmothers were raised to be homemakers and didn’t have jobs. So their lifestyle was more geared to taking care of children. Boomer women were much more likely to have had careers and still work to this day.

@motherphyllis

Millennials just can’t understand the way some boomers act If I’m being honest ##fyp##foryoupage##fypシ##fypage##mom##sahm##momlife##honest##truth##relatable##millennial##boomer##generation##millennialstothemoon##phyllis

“Here’s the thing, though: it’s statistically more likely that your own grandmothers were homemakers, at least from the time they had children,” DeeDee Moore, a grandparenting influencer, writes for Scary Mommy. “They were home to watch you after school, or host you and your cousins for weeks during the summer. Starting with the baby boomer generation, women were more likely to be in the workforce, making babysitting grandkids and cousin camp harder to pull off.”

While parents like Phyllis have a good reason to be upset that their parents aren’t involved in their children’s lives, everyone’s situation is different, so we can’t bash all boomers for being uninvolved in their grandchildren’s lives. However, their accusation does follow a significant generational trend: Gen Xers and older Millennials, known by some as Generation Goonie, were raised in a world with very little parental involvement. So, it's unsurprising that their children have grandparents who may not be around much.

This article originally appeared in April

People with dementia can roam freely in a dementia village.

Living with dementia is not easy, nor is living with someone living with dementia. No matter how much caregivers may want to keep a loved one with dementia in their home, it's not always feasible. But moving them into a traditional care facility isn't always ideal, either.

That's where a "dementia village" comes in as an alternative. Instead of trying to fit a person with dementia into a living situation that either isn't designed for them or is overly focused on their limitations, a dementia village is an environment designed specifically to help people with severe dementia feel safe and free and live as normal a life as possible.

dementia, dementia care, alzheimer's disease, dementia village, memory carePeople with dementia tend to remember distant memories and forget recent ones.Photo credit: Canva

The Hogeweyk was the world's first dementia village, founded in 2009. Since then, the idea has been replicated in dozens of locations all over the world. The concept is quite simple: A full, self-contained neighborhood where people with dementia can walk around freely without fear of getting lost, where everyone from shopkeepers to restaurant servers to salon workers are trained in dementia care, and where people who are losing their memory to dementia diseases are treated as people who still have aspirations.

Eloy van Hal, one of the founders of the Hogeweyk, explained to Vox how the guiding principle of the village is "normalcy." Traditional nursing homes keep all residents under one roof, and they are subject to whatever program the institution provides for them. In the Hogeweyk, people live in small groups of six or seven in apartments with furnishings like they'd have at home. Distinct landmarks in the public space help residents know where they are, and putting a theater, grocery store, barber shop, etc. in separate buildings encourage movement through the neighborhood.

"It's about choice, choice, choice, where you want to be during the whole day and with whom," said van Hal. The idea is to balance safe design with controlled risk, allowing for as much of a normal life as possible.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

The one downside to the village concept, of course, is cost. Without adequate funding assistance from governments, living in a dementia village can be prohibitively expensive.

Does it really make a difference for residents, though? Has it been proven that outcomes are better than traditional care models? With dozens of villages now being used around the world, research is ongoing but the data from the Hogeweyk is promising. People in the comments of Vox's by Design video shared how such facilities have been life-changing for their loved ones and how traditional care doesn't always meet the needs of people with dementia.

"My grandmother had dementia and when her caretaker who was my grandfather (her husband) passed unexpectedly we had to scramble to get her into a memory care facility in the US. The first place she was in temporarily was so sad, I could see her spirit drain but after about a year we were able to get her into a "village" and the quality of life difference is nothing short of ASTOUNDING! She could function in a way that was familiar and comfortable to her and not be in a foreign hospital setting. The abrupt change from a home where they are familiar, to a clinical setting must be very disorienting and upsetting to these people. That side of my family had mental health issues and memory loss starts early, so I know it will happen to me to some extent and I only hope I can have people take care of me as well as in this Hogeweyk."

"I've worked in a nursing home through high school and college. While I can't say it was the worst place for dementia patients, it certainly did not work well for all of them. One patient once tried to wedge herself through the door begging to go outside with me and I even had patients confide in me that they hated being institutionalized, they missed being able to live a normal life, being part of a real community, and being able to come and go as they pleased. This concept is probably the closest thing possible to a normal life a dementia patient could ever have."

dementia, dementia care, alzheimer's disease, dementia village, memory careAll the workers in a dementia village are trained in memory care.Photo credit: Canva

"A relative of mine used to get aggressive, violent and angry when she would encounter a locked door in the institution she was in. She couldn't understand why there would be a locked room in what she understood to be 'her home', this would take a lot of calming down and management, only for her to discover another locked door, and kick off again. I love these village based models as they allow autonomy for residents, and have an individual experience. Just because someone has a brain disease doesn't mean they aren't entitled to the very best care. I hope the govt spends far more on these establishments in the future."

"As he said at the end, people with dementia are still people—even if there is proven to be no benefits to this model over a care home, I would much prefer to have dignity in my final days than live in a clinical trap. Love all the incredible ideas the Netherlands come up with."

Dementia care is something Americans are going to have to look at closely. According to The Alzheimer's Association, the number of people living with Alzheimer's is set to nearly double from seven million to 13 million by the year 2050. As more of our elders require full-time care, the more we'll have to consider prioritizing putting resources into things like dementia villages.

Everyone deserves safety and a good quality of life. The Hogeweyk is a great example of what it looks like to view people with dementia as people first and to care for them accordingly.

This article originally appeared in April.

Relaxed008/YouTube

UPS driver invited to family's cookout.

Family cookouts are the ultimate get-together. Good food, good people, and good quality time together. Invites are usually extended to close friends and kin—but one family extended the invite to a UPS driver (and total stranger) working a shift on a holiday weekend, proving community and hospitality are still alive and well.

TikToker @1fanto shared a touching video with his followers from Easter weekend where his family invited a UPS driver making rounds in their neighborhood to come to their cookout and 'make a plate.'

"Everybody family around here 😭," he captioned the video. "Everybody invited to the cookout.😂"

@1fanto

Everybody family around here 😭 #easter #cookout #wherethefunction

In the video, the UPS driver is seen standing in the family's driveway, and a group of cookout attendees warmly welcome him to join them. The uncle of @1fanto says to the driver, "You've been working hard all day man, you can go on in there!" He calls out for a woman named Stephanie to "take care of him!"

The UPS driver walks up the driveway, and they encourage him to go inside and get his fill as he enters the garage. After securing a plate of food and a drink, the driver walks back outside to mingle with guests, shaking hands with the uncle who invited him.

"You good?" the uncle asks, and the driver responds, "Yeah I'm good. They hooked me up. Thank you so much. Appreciate y'all for inviting me out." On his way back to his truck, the uncle encourages the driver to invite other workers to stop by as well.

@1fanto

Explaination to last video! Thank yall for the support really appreciate it. Yall are invited to the next cookout 🤝. #easter #cookout #fyp #upsdriver #invitedtothecookout

In a follow up video, @1fanto explained more about how the invite went down. He shares that the UPS driver was driving by the family's house on the Saturday before Easter, and at the time the family was enjoying a big fish fry cookout together. His uncle flagged the driver down, and he pulled over.

He shares that his uncle told the driver, "Go inside and get you a plate!" The driver asked him, "Are you sure?" But he reassured him, adding that the family made sure to ask the driver what he wanted and didn't want on his plate to "make sure he was good and got everything he needed".

"I saw it had a positive impact. That's what my family do. That's not something that we just do for social media," @1fanto shared. "That's something that we do on a regular basis that doesn't just happen when the camera's on. It happens when the camera's off, too. We're all equal. We all bleed the same."

Viewers had lots of positive things to say in the comment section.

"I am a UPS driver and that makes our day. People showing love to us"

"Your family represents the best of America🫶🏼 Your uncle is now all of our uncle."

"Working the holidays suck. But they made that man’s entire day. Love it."

"I love when people are nice for no reason. You’re so real ♥️thank you for being so kind."

This article originally appeared in April.