A Gift Of Kindness

By Sara Reyes

Sometimes the smallest of actions reaps the biggest outcomes. What to one
person, acknowledging a waiter by name, thanking for the refill of water for a
parched customer, is a truly small thing but the action can brighten a day. I've
always loved the commercial that has person after person passing it on, and
watching the smiles on each person growing bigger and bigger.

One job growing up that I never understood was the task of going to an older
person in the community and cleaning or straightening up as an act of
stewardship. I always thought, why can't they do it? As the oldest it was my job
to make sure our house was clean, the supper on the table when my father came
home, so surely, this old woman could clean her own house. I was put in charge
of our house when I was eleven and this woman was ancient. And I was definitely
not being paid for it. This was worse than babysitting, also a task I never
looked forward to doing. But my grandmother insisted I go once a month and spend
Saturday afternoon helping Mrs. Curtis. So, grandmother's word was law and off I
went, the second Saturday of each month.

Mrs. Curtis didn't really need much work, I figured out how to run the old
vacuum cleaner, dusted around the doily filled parlor and ended up making a big
pitcher of tea. It was all quite different from what we did at our house because
being the oldest of six, we didn't have fancy doilies or old furniture that was
polished and not broken, instead our life was the pared down basics of a farm
family. But Mrs. Curtis had a house filled with old antiques and photos.

So after the vacuuming and careful dusting, I really didn't want to break anything and admonishments to be careful were bouncing in my head from my grandmother, I'd sit down with a glass of tea and Mrs. Curtis would tell me a story about one of the pictures in her parlor. Each Saturday would be the same, a little straightening, dusting and story telling. As a curious young girl, I enjoyed the stories even though I over time found out each photo, except the ones of Mrs. Curtis as a younger woman, was a picture of someone who passed. Mrs. Curtis was the last of her family.

The stories she told brought back people who were no longer with us, people I
would never meet but who were still alive through Mrs. Curtis and eventually
through me as I retold some of the stories to my friends and to my children. A
Saturday afternoon, with a glass of tea and a photograph can reap huge rewards.
The little acts of kindness add up to rich memories and eventually a life.

The story of the TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS reminds me of Mrs. Curtis. Although long gone, I can still remember the evolution of going as a young girl with extreme reluctance to anticipation to the joy of spending the second Saturday of each month with Mrs. Curtis. I was actually sad to go off to college and to give up my time with Mrs. Curtis, but it was one of my younger sisters' turn. And so we pass it on.