Let me help you with that.

Lending a Hand

“Today can be a healthy, unusual day for you—and for others—if you take time to give someone a smile…to express a word of kindness…to lend a helping hand to someone in need…to write a note of gratitude…to give a word of encouragement to someone who is temporarily overcome with problems…to share a portion of your material possessions with others.”

                          William Arthur Ward

         Once, many years ago, I contracted the Ecoli virus.  I lay alone for days with a fever of 103, which no amount of Advil would bring down.  Out of the blue, my friend, Annette, who is a nurse, called on the phone.  Annette is my globe-trotting friend.  She thinks nothing of taking off alone to Africa or Haiti or anywhere else that one can imagine.  She is that rare (some would say crazy) person who, when trouble strikes anywhere in the world, runs to it, not away from it.  Many of us live vicariously off Annette’s adventures.  I told her about the Ecoli, and within an hour she was at my door with a big bowl of watermelon.  She put some chunks on a plate, sprinkled them with cumin and said, “Eat this.  This is how they eat watermelon in India.”  It was the first food I’d had in days and I still remember how good it tasted.  I think Annette may have saved my life with her uncomplicated act of kindness.

         Sometimes the simplest things make all the difference in the world.  Recently, I wrote a letter to an author, telling him how much I liked his book, which was set in a little mill-town like the one where I grew up.  I had never written to an author before, never even considered it.  I had a lofty opinion of authors and assumed they got fan mail everyday and had neither the time nor the inclination to respond to every accolade.  Two weeks later, I received a very kind letter saying how much it meant to him to hear from someone who’d read the book.  He told me how he’d done the research for the book, and what he is working on at the moment.  I was astonished.  Even “important” people appreciate a kind word.

         There is a Swedish proverb that goes: “The best place to find a helping hand is at the end of your own arm.”  Our acts of kindness don’t have to be grand gestures.  They can be easy—like watermelon on a plate, with love from India. 

                                  In the groove,

                                  Jane