It’s been a while since I wrote an article for Thrive Global, it feels good to be back. When I saw this week’s assignment, I decided to jump on it because there is this gesture, someone did for me, in my lowest point, nine years ago, that I haven’t forgotten till this day. Kindness is a language everyone on the planet understands. When you show love to people, through acts of kindness, it reaches down to their soul and resonates with the core of who they are.
Acts of kindness could be anything from a smile, to holding the door open for someone or helping a person who is in need. The phrase “good samaritan” was generated from an act of kindness a Samaritan man, showed a stranger when he was at his lowest. When we use that phrase today, we are quick to understand that someone went out of their way, to perform a kind gesture for us.
My mom passed from cancer nine years ago. I was in the hospital with her, in the final week of her life. I prayed for her to get better, I was willing to do anything for her to get well. But I will never forget the two instances, people went out of the way, to try a make the situation better. First, it was a resident doctor. He came in to look at my mother’s condition, and I guess he could not see any other way out than to pray for us. He asked me; ‘can I pray with you?’ he didn’t mind if I was a Christian or not, He just believed that regardless of my belief system, there was someone of a higher power, who could help us.
That warmed my heart a lot. I felt at rest after he took the time out to pray for myself and my mother. A few days after that, I was fast asleep on a chair next to my mom’s bed, and she got restless. She was pulling out everything they had connected to her body; she was so uncomfortable. Her unrest woke me up, and I started running around her bed, to stop her from possibly yanking out all the doctors had connected to her body.
I exhausted myself trying to stop her, that tears began to roll down my cheeks. A nurse came in and held me, she asked if I had eaten, and my answer was no. I mean how could I eat, when my mother was slowing slipping away. I had not eaten for days. She got me some biscuits and encouraged me to eat. Saying; “you have to take care of yourself, if not you are going to breakdown as well.”
Then I stopped to eat. Although my mother passed away, I still think about these medical practitioners, who took time out to care for me, who wasn’t their patient. They saw I needed comfort and help and stepped in to provide what I needed, in their own way. Their act of kindness is something I will forever cherish in my heart. I don’t remember what they look like; if they walked passed me today, I wouldn’t know. But I remember what they did for me, which has served as a reminder for me to always show kindness to others, even when I don’t feel like it.
You never know what people are dealing with, even if they are rude to you or cut you off in traffic, there is no need to be defensive. That person may have just lost a loved one, or maybe they are at the verge of being kicked out of their apartment. So it always pays to be kind even when the situation doesn’t demand us to do so, and who knows, your kindness may go a long way.