kindness

yesterday a man came to the door wanting to know if we needed yard service & mommy told him "no thank you, my husband loves his yard work" & he left. mommy didn't think much of it & she left for her small group & daddy had no idea what happened. poor daddy, when it was time for me to go to bed i was overwhelmed with guilt & couldn't stop crying. i felt so heart broken that we didn't give the man any money or help him in any way. see all mommy saw was a man looking to mow our yard & i saw an old man who was very skinny, didn't have many teeth & his face was filled with sadness. every time i closed my eyes his face would pop into my head & i just couldn't stop the tears. it took daddy a very long time to get me to sleep, we talked about how nonie, tia liz & momo had people to take care of their yard & maybe he did one of theirs, but that didn't help. finally daddy & i made a deal, when daddy is to old to do the yard we will hire someone to do our yard & hopefully we'll find the man that came to our door, if not we'll make sure it's someone we know we'll be helping. when mommy came home she found daddy asleep on my floor & could see the dried tear stains on my now sleeping face, she woke up daddy heard the story of our evening. then it was mommy's turn to shed a few tears, she felt so bad for not seeing what I saw & was thankful that i did. we had a long talk this morning about everything & we both feel better & are going to help each other in the kindness department. the point of my story please stop, take a closer look at the people around you & remember everyone needs kindness. i'll leave you with this...
Today, give a stranger one of your smiles.  It might be the only sunshine he sees all day.
-H. Jackson Brown, Jr.