“Blue Heaven” aka Chapel Hill

Over the past several weeks the small North Carolina town of Chapel Hill has been written about in the national news for a multitude of reasons. Growing up in western North Carolina in a home of diehard University of North Carolina sports fans, UNC was often referred to as “Blue Heaven”.

Coach Dean Smith was the heart of UNC and a well-respected icon. He wasn’t just a coach but was a father, a mentor, and a friend to all who knew him closely or just saw him from a distance. Pages could be written about his legacy and even more about his heart and humility. He was Chapel Hill.

Most recently, three innocent college students were slain in their Chapel Hill townhome. My initial reaction was like others. I questioned why and how one person could have committed such a terrible and heinous act. What’s worse is that the three wonderful young lives were full of love for the world and they were remembered for their acts of kindness and service to others. They were Chapel Hill and all it stands for.

We have strong support form the great community of Chapel Hill. Many of the people who visit us make the trip from Chapel Hill and we are proud of that. We deliver weekly to “Blue Heaven” and we love the opportunity to meet new people like a customer who our delivery team got to know recently.

The owner of our contracted delivery company left late one afternoon to take a mattress out to a customer in Chapel Hill. As soon as a delivery is complete, we typically receive a text from our delivery team to update us. On this particular evening the text came several hours after he left our store in Raleigh. We were concerned but we hadn’t received any calls from our customer so we suspected everything went well. We then received a second text that read, “She made my day – we had a great conversation”. That was followed up by a photo of the customer smiling while sitting on the bed with a new mattress. This is a great micro-example of the kindness that you find all over Chapel Hill.

Our hearts go out for all of the losses in this great community. We are saddened by the meaningless tragedy but we are thankful that the community continues to show compassion and caring even in times of sadness. You set an example for the rest of us – Thank you for being Chapel Hill!

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