The longer I live on this planet, the greater my appreciation for acts of kindness and not just human kindness. Animals, birds, fish, and other creatures are capable of compassion not only for their own but for vastly different species. Thanks to my ever-present Facebook page and the newsfeed with uploaded videos, I have seen the most astonishing behaviors exhibited by animals, fish, reptiles and birds - which confirms the notion that all sentient beings have awareness.
Bringing it back to the personal, I see proof of the balm of kindness almost every day. Yesterday morning I woke up deeply depressed. This time last year, my husband was descending into the throes of terminal cancer. This time last year I was vetting spine surgeons to fix a bulging disk when it fact it was the ravages of cancer that would take his life 5 weeks later.
Without many distractions, my mood grew more and more maudlin until I decided that he was my only real friend on this earth and now he was gone, leaving me alone.
After spinning this sad tale all day, much to my mental discomfort, dinner time came and a date with friends pulled me out of the house and into a restaurant. This particular group of friends work tirelessly to ease the pain and suffering of their fellow humans, in various and sundry methodologies. In this company of compassionate people, all feelings of loneliness, abandonment and pain simply vanished.
No one took on "the shrink" mode, no one tried to "fix" me. Just the presence of gentle, aware, kind people flipped my dark world upside down and righted me in a world of sunlight and laughter.
How simple.
Bringing it back to the personal, I see proof of the balm of kindness almost every day. Yesterday morning I woke up deeply depressed. This time last year, my husband was descending into the throes of terminal cancer. This time last year I was vetting spine surgeons to fix a bulging disk when it fact it was the ravages of cancer that would take his life 5 weeks later.
Without many distractions, my mood grew more and more maudlin until I decided that he was my only real friend on this earth and now he was gone, leaving me alone.
After spinning this sad tale all day, much to my mental discomfort, dinner time came and a date with friends pulled me out of the house and into a restaurant. This particular group of friends work tirelessly to ease the pain and suffering of their fellow humans, in various and sundry methodologies. In this company of compassionate people, all feelings of loneliness, abandonment and pain simply vanished.
No one took on "the shrink" mode, no one tried to "fix" me. Just the presence of gentle, aware, kind people flipped my dark world upside down and righted me in a world of sunlight and laughter.
How simple.
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