Heading to work as usual. I get a phone call.
“Hello?”
“Yes, hello?”
There was a long pause on the other end. It wasn’t a commercial call from a bank or insurance company, but an older woman’s voice.
“Are you Ron’s mum?”
“Yes, I am.”
“I don’t know if you remember, but I was Ron’s nursery teacher, do you remember?”
That was 13 years ago when I was expecting my second son and had left my first child at a nursery near my home. The woman on the phone was my son’s teacher. She told me why she was calling.
At the time, she was in legal trouble. By chance, I learnt about her difficulties and wanted to help her, so I wrote a letter to the authorities that would have to prove her innocence and helped her, and was the first to sign the documents that needed to be signed by the parents. Then I completely forgot about it.
But she wasn’t, and thanks to the letter I wrote and signed, she was saved from legal consequences and retired the following year, having completed all her legal work. After finally being freed from an extremely stressful situation, she suffered a brain haemorrhage. Over the course of the next 13 years, she said she was slowly cleaning out her contacts and the materials she had accumulated over the course of her career. When she was almost done, she plucked up the courage to call my number, which she hadn’t deleted. She wanted to thank me. Her voice was sincere. She told me that she had been through trials and tribulations and was now living a quiet old age. She was so grateful to me for believing in her 13 years ago, for going to the effort of writing the letter and signing the paperwork without hesitation.
In fact, I can hardly remember that I did any of that. It was so amazing that I couldn’t believe I had done such a good deed. Now that I am almost 50 years old, I find myself so unfamiliar with people I met in my 20s or 30s. Maybe it was compassion that drove me to help her back then. I didn’t know at the time that the smallest thing I could do would make such a big difference, but it just felt right to do what I could.
We have all experienced in our lives that a small word, a small gesture of goodwill, can make a big difference to someone, and conversely, a thoughtless word of criticism, an act of disregard, or a turn away can hurt someone’s feelings.
Let us end each day humbly and prayerfully seeking to be a warmth to ourselves and others.
