When a South Island mother's load of laundry was stolen, she responded with compassion that has been warming cold hearts online.
"Last night I hung out a couple of my kids' blankets and jerseys, all warm gears in my carport and woke up to find that someone has taken all of them overnight," the woman posted on a Westport community Facebook page.
"If this was you, I don't wanna hurt you, I just wanna know if you are okay or if you have children that need warm clothing please PM me, I can't think of a reason why you would steal kids blankets and warm clothes unless you were in some kind of strife and needed them."
"Please contact me - I have plenty more from family that you can have, just return the blue one. It was my son's blanket and the only one I have of him before he passed.
"If you are too scared then leave it on the car tonight and I will leave a box of warm clothing and other blankets for you. No need to post my address as you clearly already know it."
Westport, a town in West Coast, South Island, has high levels of annual rainfall - an average of 200mm of rain accompanied by an average low of 7degC in May. A winter without warm blankets would be miserable.
The following day she posted an update, with a picture of her son's blue banket. The person who took her children's clothing had returned it, and they had taken a box of warm blankets and clothing left out by the woman in return.
"Blankets were returned with an apology letter and they have the boxes we left for them.
"Identity still unknown but that's okay, thank you for returning my son's blanket and I hope one day you will step forward so I can tell you personally that whatever you are going through it will get better and if you ever feel like the world is against you, remember that not one person in this post saw you through negative sights.
"Take care of yourself and to answer your question in your letter, YES I forgive you."
The message was posted in the private community Facebook group Westport The Good The Bad And The Ugly on May 10. Screengrabs of the post were tweeted out by twitter user @hilarymccam on Monday night. The post has been retweeted hundreds of times.
The mother whose blankets were stolen goes by the name MrsEdwards31 on Twitter. She tweeted that she was "humbled by all the positive posts about my kid's blanket. Have been in tears all week reading your beautiful messages," she said.
She later tweeted: "Please don't think me as an angel. I'm not a perfect person, just a mother who can relate to real struggle and knows it all too well."
Newshub.
