Bekah Georgy appears, on the outside, to be a happy, bubbly, and energetic person.
She’s physically active, spends time with those she loves, adores dogs, and is an amazingly talented ballet dancer.
But on the inside, Bekah has been struggling for a long time.
At a very young age, her battle with anorexia began, and she was diagnosed with a lot of chronic illnesses along the way. These include chronic seizures and gastroparesis.
Though she makes it a point to put on a smile and act “normal” and happy, Bekah has had to whether times of tumultuous mental health.
She starved herself for more than half of her younger years over horrible feelings of self-loathing, and she is a five-time suicide survivor.
One very difficult period came up in October 2015. Bekah was seriously contemplating suicide as she took a trip to her local Starbucks one day.
She was going to pick up an iced coffee for herself. It’s one of her “safe” foods – a consumable that she can use when her eating disorder won’t let her use anything else – and it helps reduce brain fog.
As such, it has always been one of her favorite drinks.
Usually, Starbucks employees just write their customer’s name on cups to call out later.
But this barista decided to do something different, and it completely changed the way Bekah’s day was going – and it likely even saved her life.
The message was small and simple: “smile”.
On that day, Bekah had been dealing with a lot of medical procedures, one which had her lugging around a feeding tube.
Her doctor’s appointment had been awful, and her therapy session felt even worse.
Her suicidal thoughts were mounting, and her anorexia made it difficult for her to even want to drink coffee.
Serious harm could have come to her if she didn’t find a reason to stay alive and safe.
The barista, of course, hadn’t known what Bekah was going through.
She could have decided to perform her act of kindness due to the sight of the tube, or maybe she noticed that Bekah’s happiness was only a facade.
She wasn’t doing it for any of the other customers, so she could have just treated Bekah like everyone else.
But she decided to make Bekah’s order just a little special, taking a short amount of time out of her day to make a positive impact on someone else’s.
On Bekah’s cup was the very simple, quick-to-write, and seemingly unimportant word “smile”. When Bekah saw it, she found herself genuinely smiling, too.
Suddenly, she found extra strength within her to carry on through her day, just through that tiny act of kindness that the barista didn’t need to perform.
Bekah shared this story on Facebook, and she expressed a desire to pass the hope that this barista gave her to everyone who read her post.
She said that even the smallest gestures of compassion can give hope to someone who has trouble finding any – and it just might save a life.
