Kindness

Isn't it remarkable how one small act of kindness can change your entire perspective on the world as a whole. That's just what happened to me last night.

I got out the lawnmower for a rollicking evening of grass cutting and noticed my neighbors, the Haygoods, were doing the same. Mrs. was mowing and Mr. was weedeating. My husband was at a meeting at the school where he teaches. The Haygoods have been keeping their boat in the small patch of land between our homes and have been maintaining it all the way up to our wall. So, it was no surprise when I notice Mr. Haygood weedeating along that side of our house. What was a surprise was finding him coming back along the opposite side of our house a few minutes later. Then he continued to weedeat the areas along the back of my house where I was mowing! Now, I haven't mowed my yard in quite some time...rainy days, heat, and just plain laziness had defeated me for some time now...so it was fairly tall. I was admittedly struggling with those really long blades of grass. Suddenly, I realized that Mrs. Haygood was finished with her yard and had meandered over to ours and was mowing those deep patches with her much more expensive mower! I tried to tell them they didn't have to do that, but they just said that they didn't have anything better to do!! In only an hour, both the front and back yards of my home were clean cut and well trimmed!! As I went to put away the mower, they disappeared into their own home for the evening before I could even thank them. It felt wonderful!!

Unfortunately, this kind of thing doesn't happen often enough today. They could have easily retired to their own home and left me to complete my task alone. Instead, they spent just an hour helping me. That one hour will stay with me for a while!