Make a list in your head of what sorts of people could really use a hug. It might include one of your friends, your older relatives, or maybe someone at school. Would the pizza delivery guy be on that list, by any chance?

To us grown-ups, probably not. It’s nothing personal, of course. It’s just weird to hug a random stranger.

The stranger in question might think it just as weird, too

But children aren’t ones to know these things, and they’re hardly as socially anxious as most of us, as Lindsey Sheely’s son is about to show. The 2-year old, named Cohen, sprang out the doorstep arms open, and without an ounce of hesitation gave the pizza guy a huge embrace.

On the surface, this is just a young child’s innocent friendliness. If you have toddlers, they probably do similar things from time to time. What’s noteworthy though, is what this was like from the delivery guy’s side of things.

As far as the little one knew, he just liked hugging anybody he saw. Just toddlers being toddlers.

But the man delivering the pizza actually needed that hug, really badly

The pizza man was Ryan Catterson. And unbeknownst to either Lindsey or Cohen, Ryan had very recently lost his daughter. She’d been silently suffering from terrible mental health problems, and unfortunately, like most people who do, kept it to herself.

The burden she was carrying eventually grew too much for her, and she took her own life. Ryan and his ex-wife were devastated and heartbroken.

Now that we know what Ryan was going through, it puts into perspective how important the timing of this hug was for him. It was by sheer coincidence, or perhaps fate, that Ryan and Cohen met for this spontaneous hug.

Ryan goes into a little more detail about it

“After losing my daughter this past week, it touched me because it was like she was there. It really just meant a lot to me.”

It had in fact, been only a week since the worst had happened to Ryan. Now it’s a great time to remember that old saying, “Everyone is secretly fighting a battle you don’t know”.

When this adorable, bubbly toddler ran up to Ryan and gave him a hug, just because he wanted to, it gave Ryan some much-needed warming of the heart

It’s almost like it’s his daughter’s way of letting Ryan know she’s here for him, he says.

Ryan’s late daughter is just one of the countless young people that feel alone in their mental struggles. Many young people are in the same boat, and it’s just as bad a crisis like the one we’re going through now.

Posting suicide hotlines and professing to care about mental health is all great, but there’s a much more effective and hands-on way that you can help people with such struggles

Sometimes all you need to do is be kind to the people around you. Let them (whoever they may be) know you appreciate and care about them, especially between parents and kids. The source of most mental struggles in the first place happens to be negativity. mistreatment and emotional abuse.

Simply calling someone up to ask them how they’re doing, or inviting them to hang out once in a while, can help way more than you think.

This isn’t to take credit away from spreading awareness too, of course. We’ll need both if we want to save more people from the other crisis that’s been plaguing our society way before Covid-19.

Watch more in the video below.

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Source: [ABC4Utah/YouTube]