Kindness opens the door and lets you in.
The first friend stood up and spoke about miracles in ‘the every day’. How holes in roofs get fixed, dripping taps stop dripping and a table get wheels to make it easier to move. These may not be what I consider a miracle though my sense of what he was saying was, ‘somehow things get done.’
Someone else recalled a story they had heard twenty years ago in the meeting house, they remembered the story though not the teller.
I am not sure why my mind brought me to an event when I was around 8 years old. I think it was taken by the notion of small things being miraculous and what we remember.
My parents separated when I was seven and my father would take me and my two sisters on a Saturday morning to the local swimming pool. This particular Saturday I wanted to go and see a film in the Town Hall. I think I would have been around 8 years old at the time. I was already reading the local paper and had read that a children’s film was to be shown in the Town Hall. Our town no longer had a cinema and I was taken by the idea that someone was attempting to give kids ‘the feel of a cinema’.
My father left me in the queue and arranged to meet me in 90 minutes. Unfortunately, by the time I got to the door, there was no more space. Everyone else went off with whoever they came with I remained standing outside. I didn’t know what to do and thought it best if I remained there until my father returned. Not so long after a man opened the door and asked me was I OK. I told him that as I couldn’t get in to see the film I was waiting for my father. He told me to come inside and found me a seat.
I don’t remember the film but I do remember the experience. Somewhere in this experience, I learnt that even when things do not go the way we hoped something may happen. In my story, the man showed kindness by letting me in and I was grateful. I was so grateful as a small child that the story has never left me.
The story also tells me that I had a love for film at a young age. It was probably one of the first things that I chose I wanted to do. It also told me that I loved reading local news. I was reading to find things of interest. I still read to find things of interest. Films have been part of my life though rarely these days do I get to the cinema too busy writing.
It made me think that the kindness we show to strangers can stay with them a lifetime. Indeed much more than that it can show a kid what kindness is and help him be it in another situation.
There is just one more thing. The story and indeed life tells us when it seems there is no way and we have given up a way can open up.
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