Here, Let Me Help
Making fleeting temples of kindness
It was 8:30 AM on a regular Wednesday and I was on my way to work after dropping off my daughter at daycare. I stopped by my regular coffee shop and I was chatting with Rich, the incredibly friendly barista about our weekend plans.
While I was waiting for my coffee, a woman walked past me with an infant in a stroller and another child around 4 years old walking beside her. I heard her anxious voice mentioning a doctor’s appointment for her dad, as she used one hand to talk on the phone and pushed the stroller with the other. As she was speaking, her overloaded handbag slipped from her shoulder and the contents started to spill to the curb. She parked the stroller just as the infant let out a piercing wail, as only an infant can do and in the midst of this chaos, some motherly instinct made her look up to see her 4 year old about to step down from the curb and into the street.
I heard her gasp and as I turned, I saw a man reach out and grab the back of the boy’s shirt just as he was about to step in front of a car. She screamed his name in a mixture of horror and relief as the man guided him back to his mother. The woman enveloped her boy in an embrace even as tears flowed down her eyes. The whole episode lasted maybe 5 seconds but that is sometimes the difference between an ordinary Wednesday and an unspeakably tragic one.
As I walked up to the scene to help, I saw another woman kneel down and pick up the things that had fallen from her purse and yet another woman stop by to coo at her infant and comfort her. I picked up the boy’s fallen beanie and handed it to him as he looked on, wondering what the fuss was about.
Soon, everyone went about on their ways and I grabbed my coffee and made my way to work. As I was walking, I was reminded of a poem I recently read called Small Kindnesses. The last few lines are my favorite:
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.”
The world seems to be very polarized and we are constantly bombarded with news about tragedies, yet, more often than not, these are all things we can personally do little to change. What we can do is recognize that everyone around us is fighting a battle that we know nothing about and help someone when they need it. We can be the change we want to see in the world, one small kindness at a time.