Sheryn Shaw could not believe the letter her parents received. The family from Murray, Utah, got a nasty note from an anonymous neighbor.
“At first I was really mad,” Sheryn told Fox 13 in 2016. “It took me hours to simmer down.”
The letter read: “Please paint your garage door! We as neighbors are embarrassed by you!!”
Sheryn’s 80-year-old dad, Deloy Shaw, was humiliated. His father had built the garage in 1950, and the aluminum paint had since faded. Deloy tried to fix it several times, but due to his poor health, the task had been impossible.
Deloy has a bad knee, visual neuropathy, and heart complications. He often thinks he can fix the door, until he gets out there and his body tells him otherwise.
Sheryn asked neighbors if they had sent the letter, only to discover that they had received nasty notes as well. The daughter was miffed that someone would target her elderly parents without ever offering to help themselves.
“In some communities, you still have that where people get together and help each other out,” she said.
Little did she know she was really a part of one of those communities. She posted the letter and within days, members of the community showed up to help. They all came ready to fix and paint the garage.
“I think we could probably paint a thousand houses just because so many people have stepped up willing to help,” she said.
It’s easy to let one negative person overshadow all of the positivity in the world, but the Shaws’ story shows that the good always outnumbers the bad.
