Why a story about a woman and a juicer is making our hearts burst

Cara Duggan from Belfast, Northern Ireland was in the market for a new juicer. Well, not a NEW juicer — a used one. Specifically, a Nutribullet that she found on Gumtree, a classifieds site in the UK. And it wasn’t for her — it was for her mother, Kim, who was diagnosed with stage 4 oesophageal cancer last year.

“A while after her last chemo session Mum’s legs started swelling which turned out to be blood clots, but as they were undiagnosed they had travelled to her lungs,” Cara explained to BuzzFeed News. “Apparently, this is a really common side effect of chemo. These blood clots have left her with no energy and she’s been really struggling with nausea, so we decided to get her a juicer.”

Plus, Cara and her mom had been doing research on cancer treatments, and found that chemo wasn’t the only way one could beat cancer. “Over the last few months mum has been receiving various alternative therapies and has adopted a very healthy vegan alkaline diet,” Cara told Irish Mirror.

A Nutribullet is one of the best ways to get important vitamins and nutrients into Kim’s system. But for £130 ($200), Cara wasn’t able to afford such a steep price. “We were already fundraising to cover costs of therapies and supplements for the cancer, so we couldn’t really afford a new one, hence why we reached out about the second-hand one,” she explained to BuzzFeed.

Cara found someone on Gumtree who had the juicer they were looking for, but she had to ask the seller to mail her it from London. The seller agreed. . . but then did much, much more. Cara took to Facebook yesterday to post the exchange she had with the anonymous seller.

“. . . for anyone doubting that there is good left in the world. . .” Cara wrote in her post. “Today I emailed a stranger on [Gumtree] about a second hand 900w Nutribullet. . . This is what happened.”

The stranger asked for her address and told her that she didn’t have to pay for it. . .

. . . then surprised her even further by buying her a brand new juicer that she just has to pick up from her local Argos. “[It’s] paid now. . . [I] don’t want you and your mum to wait for nutribullet [sic],” he wrote.

“I was shocked, and then thought maybe I’d read it wrong,” Cara explained to BuzzFeed. “The cynic in me didn’t really believe the Nutribullet would be there until the woman actually handed it across the counter.”

Now, she’s got her brand new juicer, and her post on Facebook has gone completely viral — the act of kindness touching the hearts of thousands across the world. “It’s just incredible, his gesture was huge, but it’s had an even greater impact than he could have imagined now it’s gone viral,” she told BuzzFeed.

What a wonderful reminder of the impact one action can have, and how important it is to be kind to those who are in need. Thank you to the anonymous Gumtree seller for his unbelievably selfless generosity, and our hearts are with the Duggan family during this difficult time.

If you’d like to help the Duggan family, Cara set up a GoFundMe account for her mother back in April. (Images via Facebook, Amazon) How one woman’s kind Facebook post changed a stranger’s life in the best wayHow Facebook helped throw this little girl the best party ever