I want to share an amazing story about human kindness, which is incredibly relevant during this week and centers around giving thanks. Two weeks ago my father passed away after a two-year battle against a rare form of non-smoking lung cancer. He left us just three days short of his 67th birthday. He lived an entire year longer than the doctors expected from when he was first diagnosed with this disease. My father fought until the very end, refusing to stop treatments and receiving a heavy round of chemo just three days before he passed away. His name was James Anthony Calder and he was the greatest man I have been fortunate to know. He has redefined the word strong for me after watching him fight this horrible illness. A repetitive depiction that my family and I heard about my father at his funeral services was “how great of a guy he was and how he loved to laugh.”
Approximating one month before what would have been my father’s last birthday, my wife and I were discussing what to get him for a birthday present. It is a challenging question; what do you get a great man who is so ill? Being familiar with social media communication and marketing, my wife and I decided to start a virtual birthday party group for my father on Facebook and invite friends and family to make videos with some “happy birthday” messages. As the videos started rolling in we thought about who we could reach out to for a birthday message that would really impress my dad. We immediately thought of his favorite TV show, Seinfeld. We started planning how to pitch this to the Seinfeld characters and started to reach out through published articles about the project, social media outreach and word of mouth. The Seinfeld birthday project was born, but we really weren’t sure how and if it would flourish.
As any Seinfeld fan knows, the TV show had a star studded cast. We never dreamed we would be able to get in touch with any of the top four lead actors on the show, let alone some of the actors who played supporting yet legendary characters. Some of the cast members not only made videos with great birthday messages but they were creative, thoughtful and sincere. These wonderful people helped to honor and celebrate my father’s birthday and provided a much needed distraction during an extremely difficult time for my family. Their kindness and compassion has humbled us to our core.
