The Comments Section Of This Mister Rogers Article Will Make You Weep
People are sharing their stories about Mister Rogers and it’s amazing
It seems like we’re hearing an awful lot about Mister Rogers these days, and that’s for a few reasons: the 5oth anniversary of the first episode just passed, and the world is scary lately — or so it seems. For those who grew up letting his gentle voice and kind demeanor soothe us through our preschool worries, we’re finding ourselves needing his simple goodness more than ever.
Right now, social media is awash in stories from people whose lives were touched by Rogers either directly or just by watching his show. Magazine editor Bradford Pearson started a Twitter thread with a few screenshots of stories from a comments section on an article about Rogers and that was all it took for the replies to fill up with even more.
Pearson writes, “Come, join me in weeping over the comments section of a Mr. Rogers article.”
And so here we are. Weeping.
From grateful parents like Barbara Orcutt who tells of Rogers answering letters her sick child wrote to him, to kids who literally thought they had their hero’s undivided attention during every show (because Rogers was that good at connecting with his little audience members) it’s so beautifully clear the impact he’s had on humanity. Talk to anyone who grew up during his show’s 30+ years on the air and they’ll likely tell similar tales.
That’s why it didn’t take long for replies to Pearson’s tweet to fill up with more stories of this incredible man and what he meant to so many.
Just keep out that box of tissues. There’s really no point in trying to stop the tears at this point. Let them flow.
https://twitter.com/jetpack/status/971255000952377344
https://twitter.com/jetpack/status/971489191472320513
The world feels so big when you’re little. It can be hard to feel heard in a world where adults are pretty much always telling you what to do and how to act and when to eat, sleep, get dressed, stop crying, grow up. Mister Rogers was, for so many kids, the one person who demanded nothing of them but to be kind to one another. He listened, he taught, he made it all better — or at least not so bad. Now that we’re grown and the world feels like it’s spinning out of control, we’re grasping for that feeling again — that someone’s here. That they hear us and care and will tell us everything’s going to be OK.
In short? Yes. This.
