Kindness and some more...

August 28, 2023 Krupa Shah

“Kindness reflects the brief moments that make this life worth living.”

Over the past two months, I have been thinking about this passage often. Especially on the days when the absurdities of life felt overwhelming, specifically on days when humans seemed cruel and despair seemed rampant. On those days, I would come back to this particular passage.

Small Kindness by Danusha Lameris

I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk
down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you”
when someone sneezes, a leftover
from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying.
And sometimes, when you spill lemons
from your grocery bag, someone else will help you
pick them up. Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other.
We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,
and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile
at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress
to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,
and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.
We have so little of each other, now. So far
from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.
What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these
fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here,
have my seat,” “Go ahead — you first,” “I like your hat.”

Isn’t it heart-warming to read that? Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other.

Surviving turbulent times we realise that nothing lasts forever, not pain, or joy. Living this life is a paradoxical activity. Joy cannot exist without sadness. Compassion cannot exist without cruelty. Courage cannot exist without fear. Hope cannot exist without despair. Kindness cannot exist without cruelty.

Kindness reflects the brief moments that make this life worth living.

On that note, I could make a list of endless things that resemble kindness. But, instead, I am listing a mix of personal and anonymous anecdotes that I have stumbled upon while writing this newsletter:

A friend patiently waiting as you quickly tie your loose shoelaces, while everyone continues walking
Letting somebody have the last cookie and they insist on splitting it in half
A friend who buys flowers for herself, often
When I walk my dog and the people with bigger dogs cross to the other side of the street, smiling at me, avoiding a barking mess between our dogs, knowing how nervous my dog can be
A stranger who offers you their seat on the metro because your carry-on bag looks heavy and your shoulders are slouched under its weight
A colleague who braves scratch marks to feed a stray cat on campus
When I recommend my favourite book to someone and they check it out because of how passionately I expressed my fondness for it
Of how, before crucial design presentations, a friend who makes eye contact, smiles and gives a subtle nod as if to say “Everything’s okay, you’ll be fine!”
When my friends include me in conversations when they notice I am quiet
When the quiet person at the Gym warns me, “Your shoes are untied”
When you walk into your friend’s house and hear their parents ask “Hi, where have you been?” and hug you warmly, like you are their own
When someone whispers to you that your shirt is buttoned wrong, that you have a lipstick stain on your teeth, to save you embarrassment later in the day
When Nani suddenly wakes up in the middle of the night, to gently caress my head and apologise because she thought she was snoring loudly
When someone holds open a door when I still have a long distance to cover before I enter, they continue to smile while I speed-walk to the door
To the stranger at the restaurant who said the colour indigo looked good on me
The friend who calls back, because my voice sounded off
Mumma hums lightly while hugging me. She doesn’t ask me questions, she doesn’t talk. She just sits there quietly humming