Three Kindnesses
October 4, 2008 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
Late Friday afternoon Charlie and I take the PATH train from Journal Square into Manhattan to meet Jim.
A young man in a backwards baseball cap moves his stuff out of a seat so I can sit beside Charlie.
Charlie gently taps the woman sitting beside him. She’s busy texting and looks up, smiles, and says “I understand. I have read about it.” She gets off at 23rd street and we exchange good-byes.
At the 33rd subway station, only two of the MetroCard machines are working and of course my card has $0.00 on it. Charlie in his blue hoodie is not the easiest to see in a crowd of commuters and I grab the hem of the hoodie and we try to find the end of the line, get into one line that is “cash only,” get back in the original line. A man in a corduroy jacket who was originally in line behind us appears and tells me that there’s no line at the machines downstairs. I thank him and Charlie and I rush down behind the two men who were in front of us (they heard too). We get a new MetroCard and are soon at Jim’s office.
Contrary to what I used to think when I was in warrior mother mode, people aren’t your automatic enemies when you’re out in public with your child.
I love days like that.
Oh I love that. I have found that people tend to surprise me (you’d think by now I’d let my guard down a little, I certainly should!) with their kindness and understanding more than the opposite.
We just got new next-door neighbors (we live in a triplex) and my boys and I went to say “hello” on the weekend the neighbor, a young (20-something) mother and her 15 month-old daughter moved in. The woman’s father was helping her. Pete immediately launched into his million question mode — which is delightful when you know him but could very much sound rude if you don’t (he tends to ask people their age and if they are married and some people don’t like this much). I said to the father, to whom Pete was directing most of his questions, “I hope you’ll excuse my son’s curiosity if it sounds rude, he’s autistic and these things are really important to him,” and the gentleman said, “that’s okay, these seem like really good questions to me.” Made my day.
Thanks Kristina, we need more of these posts to remind us to be on the lookout for not only kindless, but the many blessings in our lives.
Those random acts of kindness
.