The Kindness of Strangers

Tuesday, August 20, 2013
I've often heard the phrase, "Err on the side of kindness." I've always taken that to mean that when I look back at my own behavior, acting with kindness will never put me in a situation where I'll be ashamed of myself in retrospect.

But I'm ashamed to admit that I've not always been successful in this. For the last year, "erring on the side of kindness" has been one of my primary self-improvement goals, and yet I've still found myself speaking sharply, becoming impatient or not behaving with kindness.

And yet, in spite of my personal failings in this area, nothing has brought the importance of having a policy of being kind like trying to take care of the details of my daughter's death over the last several weeks.

Every single stranger with whom we've had contact has been incredibly, exceptionally kind. The woman who closed Moe's accounts at the Bellco branch, the DMV employees who have helped me transfer the title of her vehicle, the Capital One associate who cancelled her credit cards, our funeral director, the investigator from the Medical Examiner's Office, the woman who works at SuperCuts from whom I asked for a tattoo artist referral, and on and on and on.

All of these people have treated us with consideration and kindness, all have done whatever they could to make the work of settling Moe's estate as fast as possible and not to exacerbate our pain.

Nothing could make this process easy. But these people's kindness ensured the process wasn't any harder for me than it had to be. And there's something to be said for that.

So the next time I read about how the KKK is sponsoring "neighborhood watches" (their motto: "You can sleep tonight knowing the Klan is awake!"), I'm going to try and remember all the people who treated me with exceptional kindness in the worst weeks of my life. I'm going to try and follow their example, because you just don't know what people are going through. It hurts no one to err on the side of kindness, and it might just ease someone's pain.

2 comments:

Anne C. said...

<3 <3 <3
So glad to hear kindness has been the prevailing response. If I had one wish, it would be that the entire world worked that way all the time.

Cuthbert the sailor said...

Yes, this really resonates with me. I(usually) tend to err on the side of grumpiness and caution with no matter who I encounter.

Guess we can learn lessons from people at even the dmv and bank sometimes. Perhaps the world and its inhabitants are not all evil, all of the time. A post like this allows for a ray of sunshine to illuminate the warm side of humanity even on what seems like the darkest of days.

Think I'll try to be nicer to folks this week. It won't last and when I fail, I will try again. It will however, get the old college try.