“You and I will never meet,
I would not know you on the street;
But your actions made me shed a tear,
And remember human kindness is still here.”
I have been noticing human kindness lately. I am not good at stopping to give money to those on street corners. It is not because I don’t care, it’s just usually because I am in a hurry, or I never can choose who to help because sadly, there seems to be someone on every corner.
But last week a woman caught my eye with a sign that simply said “Mom who needs help.” And next to her was a bucket of roses. So, I stopped. If you follow my Instagram, you will see I posted a photo of a pink rose this mom gave me after I gave her $5.00. The rose is still on my window sill and makes me happy. Perhaps the $5.00 helped her buy something she needed. Both of us moms. Both of us received something that made us smile. Dual human kindness.
The other day my daughter Ashley and I went to the In and Out Burger drive thru. Time alone with my daughter is a treasure in itself, but while we just expected our burgers and fries at the drive thru window, instead the young man working there told us,
“Your meals have already been paid for by the person in front of you.”
I was literally stuck for a second. “What?” I asked. And he repeated what he said;
“Your meals have already been paid for by the person in front of you.”
I tried waving to the person in front of me, but he or she had already driven away. I must have stayed frozen because my daughter had to say my name a few times,
“Mom, Mom…., MOM!”
I looked at her wide-eyed.
“Mom, you have to pay for the person behind us now!”
Of course I did, and how blessed I am to have a daughter that realized this. So we paid for the car behind us, and hoped that maybe, maybe, this beautiful chain of burger paying would continue, because what an amazing (and yummy!) chain that could be!
I have been paid for and paid for others at Starbucks before, but it has been a long time. Too long. And while human kindness at Starbucks is also amazing (and I need to start doing it again!), an In and Out Burger meal for two, with a milkshake (of course!) is not the same price as a coffee!
This human kindness stuck with me that entire day, and is still sticking with me, because the human kindness lately is what is keeping me going when I hear, read or see some of what is going on in the world right now.
That person in front of me at In and Out Burger did not care who I am, what I look like, what race I am, what my political views are, what religion I am, if I am vaccinated or not, what gender I am…. NO. They just wanted to be kind to another human being, period.
In this crazy world of judgement right now I wanted to shout to the world-
“Human kindness is still here! Don’t forget it!! It is still here!”
When I used to be a news reporter way back when, I had to remind myself of this very lesson, because the sensationalism of the news only seems to report the bad when really there is so much good out there. Sadly, the good is sometimes just a bit little harder to see but as I tell my daughters;
“I truly believe there is more good out there than bad, and more kind people out there than cruel.”
And sometimes they just happen to get in front of you at a drive thru!
So, I share this story with you here, because maybe today you can be that person paying for the person behind you. Or maybe tomorrow someone will pay for you. And maybe one day the In and Out Burger human kindness chain will spill over in other ways in our lives and remind everyone we are all the same. We are all human. We are all equal. We are all going through life with both struggles and joys. We all are deserving of human kindness.
Blessings to you person in front of me at In and Out. And blessings to all of you out there practicing human kindness.
We are all the same. We are all human. We all need and deserve kindness.
What human kindness did you notice today? I hope it was beautiful.
Blessings,
