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Nine months into my first industry job, I evacuated the entire second floor of a building.
It was an innocent enough thing: removing a 4 L bottle of nitric acid from the acid storage cabinet, it hit the floor at just the right angle to crack it. The acid began to leak out. I was not sure what to do, so I looked at it, dithered a bit, then went and found my supervisor. Within 10 minutes the lab was shut as the acid outgassed and the second floor evacuated. All on the day of the company Christmas party, where I when scheduled to be Santa's stand-in but instead got my fingers taped up for (very) minor acid discoloration and sent home.
Over the weekend, the rest of the team came in and completely wiped down the lab and everything in it. No-one asked me to come. No-one said a word about it afterwards. It was just part of what people did.
I have memories like this scattered across my life and memory: The Director and Uisdean Ruadh who looked after me at my worst, friends who guided me when I was being an idiot, a young tow truck driver who offered me half his sandwich when I was cold and miserable looking after I hit a curb and bent my rim the day before I was to leave for Japan, my coworkers after my being laid off.
A thousand stars, lit in the darkness of despair.
I have lost track of many of those people. I doubt some of them remember the acts they did at the time. But those acts keeping me thinking of them at odd moments and in the moments when I castigate myself for mistakes.
It costs nothing to be kind. But the act and the memory will live on long, long after events and perhaps even the acquaintance.
Be someone's inspiring memory. Be kind.
Kindness is really all around us if only we just keep our eyes open for it.
ReplyDeleteEd, it really is. Yet so many are not conscious of it, seeing it often as "service" or "honour due".
DeleteForget the kindness others have done? The neighbors around the corner who let me park my vehicle in their driveway to get it off the street during the "Snowstorm of the Century"...having the dressing changed on my back after lung surgery, there's more TB. How can I not return the kindness others have shown to me?
ReplyDeleteNylon12 - To your point (and Ed's above), it is literally everywhere. I suppose the question is whether we determine to see it and then pass it on.
DeleteI wonder if we sometimes forget that the little simple acts of kindness that have such a large impact. The spontaneous things that take no time or effort on the part of the giver, yet find a home in the memory of the receiver..
ReplyDeleteLeigh, I think you are right - because (at least for me), I am too much focused on myself instead of the other person. Too often it is an inconvenience or almost a throwaway act. When every interaction with someone else focuses on them, I think I am more conscious of how I impact them.
DeleteYup. And, be worthy of the kindness.
ReplyDeleteThat, John, is also an excellent point. If kindness is a gift, we should always strive to be worthy of the gift.
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