During Forrest County Agricultural High School’s Homecoming of 2021, Homecoming Queen Nyla Convington gifted her crown to a fellow student, Brittany Walters, knowing she’d just lost her mother to a fight with cancer.
Being a good human is easy. So easy. https://t.co/LM6tTaVXYF
— Kimberley Lovato (@kimberleylovato) October 2, 2021
An Important Day Without Her Mom
According to a report from WLOX, Brittany Walters had just lost her mom, A.J. Walters, to cancer that Friday morning before Homecoming. Knowing she wouldn’t make it, A.J. enlisted a little help from her husband.
“She made me promise her that I was going to come out here with Brittany because she didn’t want to ruin her day, her homecoming day,” Sean Walters, Brittany’s father, said. “She said that’s something she’ll remember for the rest of her life.”
But despite that, Brittany was still going through the motions; missing her mom. “All I could think about was my mom and how she wanted to be here, and then the next thing I know, Nyla walked towards me, and she hugged me,” Brittany said.
A Selfless Act of Kindness, Inspired by the Mom
Brittany told WLOX that she didn’t think anything of it beyond support when Nyla came over to her and gave her a hug, “…and then she started to take off her crown.”
Nyla Covington knew Brittany’s mom, given that she was an Administrative Assistant at the school, and had often been touched by her spirit and kindness, in the past, as had many others there. “She’s like the person that I want everybody to be like, honestly, cause she just smiled,” Nyla said.
FCAHS Principal, Will Wheat, concurred, “Her spirit is what made her special,” he said. “Even on the hardest days, even battling cancer, she always had a smile on her face.”
That generosity of spirit compelled Nyla to remind Brittany of something she felt was important for her to know on this painful day. “I told her it belonged to her, and then she was, like, backing away,” Nyla recounted. “I was like, ‘No, come here, get it, you’re your mom’s queen.’ I wanted her to know that, and then I hugged her.”
After being crowned homecoming queen at Forrest County AHS, Nyla Covington chose to share her crown with Brittany Walters, who had just lost her mother (an FCAHS employee) to cancer that morning.https://t.co/C0QCOiF9mN
— SuperTalk Mississippi (@supertalk) September 28, 2021
A Painful Night Transformed
That simple act of kindness imbued what could have been an emotionally crippling evening for Brittany Walters, forever remembered with sadness, into one of love and remembrance.
She relayed to WLOX that she felt her “mom’s presence there” through Nyla and that it was immensely comforting to her. “I feel like this is her way of still touching people, ’cause that’s what she lived her whole life around,” she said. “My mom would have done the same thing if she was in Nyla’s shoes.”
‘A Light for the Rest’
Both Walters, A.J.’s husband, and Principal Wheat, shared Nyla’s gesture of generosity, hoping for it to be “a light for the rest of society”, and out of pride for her giving nature.
We need more of this. We need to recognize the ones we have in our classroom alreadyhttps://t.co/EZbP6KEtQV
— Robert Baker (@bobbaker24) October 2, 2021
“Obviously, she has great parents that raised her well, and that’s hard to find sometimes nowadays, and that speaks a lot of them, too,” Walters said.
Living by examples of kindness certainly took home a crown from this evening, as well; one that both Nyla and Brittany will remember for something far greater than just the tragedy cancer leaves in its wake.
Have you lost someone to cancer? Did you experience any acts of kindness, such as this one? Let us know in the comments below.
