Years after an act of kindness, it's returned and doubled

One generous act often begets another, but it’s rarely a case of instant karma. At one Everett dental office, more than a decade passed between a forgiveness of debt and this season’s holiday surprise.

In early December, a woman walked into Dr. Bruce Nixon’s office. She brought with her three $100 bills. “She said she wanted to pay this back,” Nixon said last week.

Nixon and his wife, Louise, a dental assistant who has worked at her husband’s Colby Avenue practice for more than 20 years, immediately remembered their former patient.

“She was a single mom,” Dr. Nixon said.

Louise Nixon recalled Monday that the woman was raising a young family while studying to become a nurse. “She struggled really hard with her little children and wanted to better herself,” she said.

In the mid-1990s, Louise Nixon said, “I kept seeing her bill, but no action” — no payments. She talked with her dentist husband about finding a way to help.

“We kind of look at those situations at the end of the year and write some things off,” Louise Nixon said. They know enough about some situations to see when patients just can’t pay, no matter how often they’re billed. “It only causes more grief, and they’ve got enough,” she said. “We knew she was struggling with that.”

“Some years we do it, some years we don’t,” Dr. Nixon said.

For this patient, they decided to write off the debt entirely.

“We called her and wrote her a note saying that we want to do this for you,” Louise Nixon said. The patient was so grateful, she came into the office back then and took the dentist and his wife to lunch.

“We just thought that was it,” Louise Nixon said. “She stopped being our patient, and we lost track of her.”

At least a dozen years had passed when the former patient walked through the door a couple weeks ago. “She just popped up and said, ‘I have never forgotten what you guys did for me,’” Louise Nixon said.

She said that the woman, now employed, acknowledged that the $300 was less than she originally owed. Louise Nixon said the former patient asked that the couple “take this money and give it to another family in need.”

The Nixons plan to match the $300 and make a donation to the fund for 18-year-old Sarah Agerup and her sister Kaitlyn, 16. The sisters’ parents, Brad and Melissa Agerup of Snohomish, were killed along with another couple, Tom and Hilda Woods, when their car was struck Nov. 29 by an alleged drunken driver on Highway 9.

Louise Nixon said her husband lost his father at an early age, and at the same time of year. Their hearts go out to the sisters orphaned by the crash. And they are still amazed that their former patient went to the effort to make things right.

“Never has that ever happened,” Dr. Nixon said.

“It was the kindest gesture. She is such a neat gal,” Louise Nixon said.

When she brought in the money, Dr. Nixon said he at first told her, “I can’t take that.” His wife said her reply was, “You have to. Put it in your pocket and pay it forward.”

In this year of double-digit jobless rates and crunched credit, keeping up with bills is a challenge for many families. When fortunes turn, they’ll know firsthand the plight of the those in need. Some will remember the hard times, and open their wallets for others.

It may take years, but what goes around comes around.

Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460, muhlstein@heraldnet.com.