Sometimes the little things we do make a big difference. Blake Murray, a forestry worker from Ottawa, found that out firsthand after someone noticed a small but important gesture he made.
Murray was cutting down a line of ash trees when he noticed that one had a white cross left on it. He knew this was meant to remember someone who died in a car crash, and didn't feel right about chopping it down.
Instead, Murray spent "less than five minutes" carving a simple wooden cross in the top of the tree, and left the rest of it standing. It didn't take long for people to notice his good deed.
Murray doesn't know the person whose death is marked by this cross. There's no information on the tree besides the white cross the family left, but Murray still felt it was important to honor his memory.
He told CBC he "didn't expect anything to come of it," but the next day the local paper ran a letter from a bus driver who'd seen him leave the tree up and thought he deserved to be recognized.
"Too many people just brush things off," she said in an interview. "There's too much sadness and horror on TV. Whoever did this said 'Someone died here, somebody loved this person, I'm going to do this.' We need more of that."
People obviously agree, because they've been stopping Murray while he's working to shake his hand, and sharing how impressed they were with his kind gesture on Facebook.
