#ThereAreNoOthers and #kindness in action
Recently I have been focusing more of my posts on the ideas of kindness and an interconnected community. I am a firm believer that we must do better in how we relate, connect, support, and nurture ourselves and our community.
Today I would like to give a shout-out to my wife, a woman for whom I have the greatest admiration. Today my wife was presented with a situation that unfortunately exists, and her response to it exemplifies the concepts of kindness and interconnection.
As my wife was driving our child to daycare this morning, she noticed a small child walking down the sidewalk alone. It was presumed given the time of day that this child was on his way to school (understandably), however, on her way back from the daycare 15 minutes later she noticed that same child a little further down the road, this time he appeared more aimless and not any closer to a school. It raised some concern for my wife, who felt there was the potential that he was lost or missed his bus, as most schools had likely already started at this time.
This is a fairly busy city street, and during this time there must have been no less than 100 cars that passed this child.
My wife assisted the child by contacting his school and bus service to find the answers for him, including when school started, and what time his bus would pick him up. Once it was determined it would be another 10+ minutes for the bus to come, my wife chose to sit with the child and wait. They discussed school, football, and the ins and outs of playing cornerback on a youth football team.
They waited together for his bus to come down the street.
THIS IS KINDNESS.
This was not our biological child, but this is a child of our community. He absolutely deserved those 30 minutes.
This is what I would want for my child. I would want someone to stop and to check that he was alright. I would want someone to make sure he made it to school safely if he seemed lost. I would want someone to spend those 30 minutes even if it meant borrowing time from some other activity.
What if we (collectively) cared even just 10% more about our community?
What would that look like? Would that mean instead of 1 person stopping for this child 10 people would have checked on this child?
We are all busy people - but this is the world I want to live in. Our community can be more supportive, it can be more connected, and your small efforts towards this goal DO MATTER.
~ Dr. Miles
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