Essential Question Response: Small Acts of Kindness

This post is a response to my Essential Question ‘How do others view me?’

Last summer, I went to Seattle with my mom for about a week. I had a lot of fun on that trip, but the thing that I remember the most was this experience:

We were walking back to our hotel from the restaurant where we had eaten dinner. During our various walks over the course of the trip, I had noticed that Seattle had a big homeless problem, and this walk was no exception. I looked down as a homeless woman sitting in a doorway shouted to the man walking in front of us that if he had any food she needed it, because she’d just had another baby and she was hungry. The man said at least three times that he was sorry, but he didn’t have anything with him. He sounded genuinely sorry.

I looked at the container of leftovers my mom had taken from the restaurant, and I nudged her to say that we should give it to the woman. My mom walked over and handed it to the woman, who opened it to check what was inside and then thanked her.

As we walked away, the man in front of us turned around and said “Hey, thanks for doing that, that was a great thing to do.” After a moment he turned around again to say “No, really, I mean it, that was really cool.”

I grinned, suddenly boundlessly grateful for him to do something harder than we had done—turn around to thank two strangers for a small gesture that otherwise would have gone unnoticed. If he hadn’t said what he did, I probably would remember that event with sadness because of Seattle’s homeless. Instead I remember it with not just sadness, but a bit of hope and happiness, because of the man who recognized a good deed—however small—and said something about it.