Sprinkle in a Little Extra Kindness Because You Never Know

I was horrified to find myself crying. In public. Worse yet—at work.

16-ish years ago, our baby wasn’t sleeping. Some babies sleep; ours did not. Nothing worked. Every night would go something a little like this: he’d nap for a bit, ask for some calories, want to be held, then sung to and rocked, and then maybe, after 40 minutes or an hour, perhaps lightly nap again. And that grueling cycle repeated all night, for two years. I wasn’t sleeping much more than an hour and a half at a time, patching together 4-ish hours of sleep a night, and this had been going on for months.

That day, the board was coming to our offices. I was wearing a suit, the first suit I had worn in more than a year. Feeling quite stylish, I reached for the baby in the daycare’s parking lot, and my stylish feeling evaporated. His back was coated in poop caused by a diaper explosion that always seemed timed for maximum impact, but I didn’t realize it until the damage was done. My coat sleeve was coated in poop, too.

At the office, I took off my blazer and washed the sleeve in the bathroom sink. Soon, the entire arm was sodden, and there was no time to head home for a change. Thankfully, the wet patch didn’t show, but it felt damp, cold, and uncomfortable.

As I trudged out of the bathroom back to my office, a colleague walked past and said, “Hi!” “How are you doing this morning?” And my response was a misty-eyed, tearful inability to say anything. My sweet colleague hugged me, I pulled myself together, and went on with the rest of my day.

That memory sticks with me because you never know what someone else is going through. In fact, chances are someone (or everyone) in your community is going through a little bit of something right now. The death of a parent, a scary medical diagnosis, a sassy teen, a bum knee, a scary fender-bender, a vengeful boss, a harassing co-worker, menopause, or even the ongoing torture of not sleeping.

Perhaps someone who is going through something needs a little pick-me-up. A little dash of kindness can change a day, a week, or even someone’s trajectory.

Where can you add a little extra kindness?