by Denise Dykstra

My cousin Abby is a strong, confident, powerful woman with one of the biggest hearts. She loves fiercely and she protects fiercely. She is, and I mean this with all the respect and admiration it deserves, a true badass.

We could tell some stories that she wouldn’t want to share because she doesn’t want the accolades. But let me tell you, it’s easy to love her, and I am incredibly proud of her.

Even though this story is about her, she wants you to know it’s not about her, it’s about her community.

When Abby’s deployed daughter landed in her cold distant land far from her home, Abby asked what all moms would ask, “What do you need, what can I do for you?”

As a military mom, there is so little you can do. It’s so hard to be of help in any way. A military mom – a military family – are unsung heroes in their own right.

“Mom, can you send me a pillow?”
“I’m sorry, what? A pillow?”
“Yah, none of us have pillows, and it’s really hard to sleep without one.”

Oh, Mama was on a mission then.

Knowing that the entire troop – around 70 people – were without pillows, ate at Abby. She didn’t know what she could do, but she was surely going to try to do what she could. Abby got on Facebook and made a request for anyone who could help supply pillows and pillowcases for her daughter’s troop to let her know because she would be shipping some later that week.

Abby HOPED for 80. She figured she would be ecstatic, and blown away, if she got 50.

What happened next is a true testament to the community she and her family live in. And it’s a story that is so uplifting and powerful, it had to be shared.

Within hours of posting that one lone Facebook post, her phone blew up with people who wanted to help. She left work that day with 1,000 plus dollars in donations. Her Venmo stayed busy as people donated. Twenty-five boxes arrived on her front porch filled with fifty pillows and pillowcases and fifty tubes of toothpaste…from a complete stranger.

Abby added pillows to her grocery pick up order and laughed when the boys laid on top of all the pillows as they wheeled them out to her. “Gonna have a pillow fight?” they asked with a laugh.

She told them the story. How all these kids were deployed to a cold country, living in a tent, sleeping on a cot and didn’t have pillows so she was doing what she could to help.

“I still can’t believe they are all deployed without the smallest of creature comforts, a pillow!” she shared with me. “It just seems so crazy!”

She told me this as one of my son’s friends walked by us. I told him what we were talking about.

“That’s typical to not have a pillow,” he told me, “I was stationed in a desert with just a sleeping bag. We were in a wind storm with no tent. You had to pull the sleeping bag over your head to keep the spiders out. And these spiders were huge. But it was almost impossible to keep them away. And we never had a pillow.” I wanted to cry, and hug him, but I didn’t want to embarrass him. “Good job sending those,” he told her.

That first weekend, Abby and her family packed and mailed 146 pillows, and pillow cases, as well as a box full of snacks and hygiene items.

They had learned that when all these hundreds of heroes landed in their deployment base, the store that they could walk to was unprepared to handle all of them. The store could not get the most basic of items needed – toothpaste, deodorant, feminine products, wipes to wash themselves due to lack of showers – nor the items they craved, like snacks or games to pass the time.

The first shipment of boxes left on a Monday and cost $500 to ship – all the shipping was covered by donations – and arrived by Thursday. By Sunday night, the box of snacks and personal items was completely empty.

A week later, Abby and her family and her extended family, packed up 160 plus pillows and boxes of needed items and shipped them to her daughter. At the time of this writing, those boxes have not arrived yet, but can be seen in a country near them and still on it’s way to the base, just delayed.

In all, 326 pillows were sent. This amount has not just the troop, but close to the entire battalion, able to have a pillow to sleep.

Abby is blown away.

“I’ve always known our community is great, but I have never been on the receiving end of it. But watching how this came together, I am just blown away. I can’t put it into words. Our community came out in force for the entire battalion and it was amazing to see. The generosity

of people restored my belief in humanity,” Abby shared with me. The emotion of it all was written all over her face.

How does one go about packaging and sending 326 pillows?

Using a vacuum sealer, Abby and her family stripped the pillows of all excess packaging, added a folded pillow case and sealed two pillows and cases per vacuum sealed bag. They found they could add 18 pillows this way to one box. Each box had a note letting the deployed heroes know that West Michigan loved them.

The deployed troops were ecstatic. Abby has messages and photos from so many of them sharing their thanks. The Command Sergeant Major and Lieutenant Colonel sent messages of appreciation. Abby’s deployed daughter is regularly told to pass on a “thank you” to her mom and everyone who helped her.

“All these kids, because to me they are all kids, they are all very thankful and I feel so much better to know they have the smallest creature comfort, a pillow, while deployed,” shared Abby.

Items are still coming in to be sent to the troops, and Abby continues to gather it all up, and intends to keep mailing it out to her daughter’s troop for them to pass out as needed. Anything that she gets in that is above and beyond what can be used, she will be passing on to the Blue Star Moms to use for the David Warsen Legacy drive. The David Warsen Legacy collects items to be sent out after Thanksgiving so all deployed troops receive some sort of needed item come Christmas.

“But this isn’t about me,” Abby emphasizes again, “This is about the community. I have notebook paper filled front and back from all the people who gave. Every single little thing, and every big something, made this all possible. This community did this, I just helped send it off. I can’t thank the community enough. It was amazing to see them helping these kids, because to me they are all still kids.”

And half a world away, an entire battalion of deployed heroes will go to sleep at night with a soft pillow that the West Michigan town of Wayland sent them. And here on the home front, the heroes who provided those pillows will sleep safely in their own beds because of our military’s protection.

Pillows for Heroes. What a beautiful thing you all did together. Thank you.