it was around this time last year that we threw a surprise grand re-opening party for Mo

last night i had my last meal at Kabob N Curry

i think when someone close to you loses something of great importance to them, their loss is yours too.

i cried so many times during this project -- the first time because we were completely in over our heads and i had no idea what we were getting into. the second and every other time after that, i had no good reason. i remember looking over at __ with his bags under his bloodshot eyes, it was past 2am on a weeknight and he'd have to wake up early for work. this scene repeated for 2 weeks straight and sometimes i would tear up during my drive home, for no reason in particular. and watching __ & __ cooking in the kitchen, __'s artwork, __'s special touches everywhere, __ taking her family and friends there to eat...soo many times i felt ________ i don't even have a word for it.

that feeling i got in the creamed corn aisle is freakin priceless and i hope i will never forget it.

and then somehow more and more people became involved in addition to the Seven: the staff at Home Depot who donated so much stuff, a photographer from Kansas, highschool friends, the Fortune 500 exec who gave us a one day MBA crash course, the person off the street who took a paintbrush and touched up our mistakes when we weren't there, and the million other people who played a part in this without our knowing.

but in the end, nothing really changed. Mo sold the restaurant a year after we came in. i know it was never our intention to save his business
This isn't a mission to see if seven random people can remake a restaurant...maybe we can't, and that's not the point.

our goal from the beginning was to show kindness to a stranger.
i really believe that we did

in the months after the drop, Mo became like an uncle to me, and there were times when he lectured me on everything from my shoes to my love life. one day i was telling him about a homeless project we were working on, and he asked me if i could name one homeless person we had helped who wasn't homeless anymore. could i give him the name of one person whose life had changed for the better because of something i had done

i couldn't. even though he didn't say it outright, i knew he was partly talking about himself and i still shoulder some of that blame. i know that *I* have changed for the better but does that count for anything? i have no tangible proof that we are making any kind of difference but i know that we should keep trying if only to learn how to make ourselves better. changing the world is nice but i know i'll never come close to it. changing myself is the one thing i am certain i can do.

anyway, Mo is planning to take a vacation, something he hasn't done in a long time. i'm happy that he's able to do what he wanted after all :)

drop complete.