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HOUSTON — It’s been two years since a tragic car accident took the life of a promising young BYU student, but those who loved her continue to share her legacy by sharing something to which she devoted her life: kindness.
“I should show love to everyone by doing acts of kindness for them,” Madeline Morris wrote in her BYU application essay. “It gives me a chance to be a light of Christ and make the world a better place.”
Madie didn’t just write those words, she lived by them. The bubbly 18-year-old from Texas filled her days with small gestures aimed at getting a smile out of even the most skeptical of strangers.
“She was the person who would smile and say hello to everyone, even sometimes creating awkward situations because she was just so nice that people would be surprised,” said Rachelle Morris, Madie’s older sister.
Madie was the girl who tracked down the lonely kids at a church dance and pulled them onto the floor until they felt like they belonged. She was the girl who would shout across campus to a classmate she’d met just a week before — reminding her new friend that she knew her name, that she mattered, Morris said.
Madie was the girl who never missed an opportunity to make someone’s day.
“She was so kind because she focused on being kind,” said Morris. “I used to think that she was simply predisposed to being kind and that she didn’t really have to work at it, but now I realize that whether or not she was born with that predisposition, she had a laser focus on showing kindness.”
Those who wish to join the campaign this holiday season are invited to find an act of kindness and share their experience on social media using #sharekindness
The Morris family’s world was shattered in an instant a few days before Thanksgiving in 2012. Madie, along with her brother Taylor and his fiancée, were driving to Arizona for the holiday when their car went off an embankment and landed upside down.
Madie was killed instantly.
On the first anniversary of Madie’s death, the pain was as crushing as the day of the accident. But the Morris family was reminded neither they, nor their precious Madie, had been forgotten.
“I think I had at least 200 roses in my apartment, which was just incredible,” said Rachelle Morris. “It was overwhelming in the best kind of way. Maybe for the first anniversary, that was needed to get me through it — just to know that people remembered.”
This year, Morris felt ready to move forward. To take her very real and very present pain and find a way to help those who suffered from similar heartache. That is, after all, exactly what Madie would want her to do.
So with the “overwhelming” support of family and friends, Morris launched the #sharekindness campaign on Instagram. She invited any and all to join her in sharing an act of kindness during Madie’s anniversary week and post about their experience on social media — a most appropriate way to honor the life of a woman who embodied the theme.
“Rather than asking for people to help me, I really just wanted to generate kindness in this world and make it a week about promoting the legacy of Madie, rather than indulging in the pain of the second anniversary,” Morris said.
In the week that followed, stories of simple yet extraordinary kindness began to trickle in from coast to coast.
An occupational therapist in Boston gave free consultations to the families with whom she worked. A New York City photographer offered a free session for a family in need. In Minneapolis, co-workers tied fleece blankets for those who struggled to keep warm. A Dallas jewelry designer crafted elaborate dream catchers to donate to patients at a local children’s hospital.
In Arizona, a local business owner organized a special coat drive. Utahns winterized a home for a new mother and brought cookies to a neighbor whose husband was in a facility battling Alzheimer’s. One Utah mother-to-be donated diapers, supplies and other baby items from the nursery she and her husband lovingly set up for the baby they thought they’d be able to adopt, only to have the birth mother change her mind.
Stories rolled in from Seattle, Portland, San Francisco and beyond. Thousands of people giving and receiving kindness — all in the name of Madeline Rose Morris.
“What should have been a painful and difficult week to endure in my life has turned into a week full of love and gratitude,” Morris said. “It’s been overwhelming in the best possible way.”
Morris, along with a group of friends in Houston, spent an evening handing out blankets, socks, snacks and other essentials to the homeless. One recipient asked the group what inspired their action, so they shared Madie’s story. Morris was deeply moved by his response.
There will always be pain associated with Thanksgiving, but there's a blessing in the timing because it is an opportunity to kick off the holiday season with the idea of getting out of our own individual lives and thinking about ways to share kindness with those around us.
–Rachelle Morris, Madie's sister
“He looked at me with the most sympathetic eyes and said, ‘I’m so sorry for your loss,’ ” she said. “It was just one of those human-to-human moments where our lives are very different from each other, but at the end of the day we can still touch each other and lift each other’s spirits through kindness.”
Morris hopes the #sharekindess campaign continues well beyond Thanksgiving. At the time of her first post, the hashtag had 800 entries. In just a week, that number shot to over 1,000.
Morris hopes to see it double over the holidays.
"There will always be pain associated with Thanksgiving, but there's a blessing in the timing because it is an opportunity to kick off the holiday season with the idea of getting out of our own individual lives and thinking about ways to share kindness with those around us," she said.
For this proud sister, sharing kindness has become more than a just a movement — it’s a way of life.
“It’s taken me 29 years to realize that kindness is something that you have to work on proactively. It’s just like any other talent or skill that someone has — the more you practice it, the better you become at it,” said Morris. “I’m grateful that I have Madie as a younger sister who figured that out so early in life and is now teaching me and hopefully teaching others what life is all about. Kindness truly is the essence of greatness.”
To see some of the ways Madie's supporters have chosen to #sharekindness thus far, browse the photo gallery above.
