To Be Kind

I had lunch with a very dear, old friend today. We were talking about noses (don't ask), and I told her that her nose has always been one of my favorite features on her. It is long, aquiline, prominent, sort of Roman-esque...


...and I love it. It fits her face. It fits her. It's beautiful, and I told her so.


She pooh-poohed my compliment, saying her nose was too big, and then said one of the worst things she could have possibly said to me. (I consider this particular thing to be an insult, btw, for those of you who care to know). She said:


"You're too nice."


I stopped and gazed at her in astonishment. "Nice? I'm nice? Do you not know me at all?" I asked. "I," says a very insulted me, "am not nice. I am honest, I can BE kind, but I am not nice. I am a bitch."


She agreed without further adieu, which was wise of her because a) she has known me for thirty years, and b) I am, well...a bitch. 


I wanted to share this story because I feel it's an apropos introduction to my topic today: Kindness. 

• What does it mean to be kind? 
• What does it mean to be compassionate?
• Why, oh, why does the word "nice" send me into a frenzy of anger?

Last week a well-meaning friend sent out a group-mail to everyone on her list (me included) with a link to a blog (if you read this, no offense D.S., you know I love you) and the blog affected me in two very distinct ways. One, I was touched. Two, I was irritated. The irritation overrode the touchy-feelie.


I'll include a link so you can decide for yourself how you want to feel about it. After reading you may indeed decide I'm a bitch. Or you'll see my point.


The blog is entitled We Must See Past What it Seems.


I think the title ought to have been Poor Me, and Don't You Feel Sorry For Me, Too?


The blog author talks about "signs" and how most human beings miss them. She isn't referring to EAT AT JOE'S signs either.  She writes:

"As we move along…I want you to think about some of the big signs with big messages that I bet you wish you could wear around your neck sometimes so that people would be more gentle….or even that you could put around the neck of someone you love….so that you didn’t have to go into a big long story to defend yourself or someone else….so that people would just stop judging and and just be kind."

The blog author then goes on to give an account of how her husband was in an accident and sustained a TBI (traumatic brain injury) to his frontal lobe. This is a tragedy and let me be clear: it's unfortunate and very sad that this happened to him, and to his family. It must have been horrific.


The blog author then moves on to say that her husband had been in charge of a large business, a life, she says that "HE managed" while she got to do the "fun and creative stuff." 

Post accident, however, their lives began to fall apart. The reasons listed:


--medical bills


--lots of sorrow


--lots of distractions


--lots of KIDS


--no one competent to manage the business.


I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt and say that there were probably a hundred other factors that caused the downfall that she didn't list.


This is the part where I started to have second thoughts.


She told her husband, while he was in a "lucid state", how bad things were for them financially. He tried to solve the problem by selling their belongings in front of their property hoisting up a neon sign. A "HUGE" neon sign.


They were selling:


A Suburban


Two trucks


A tractor and implements for said tractor  

a Classic Thunderbird (a birthday gift he'd given her)


and a boat.

After the litany of sale items, she tells us this: 

"You have to understand that we had worked for MANY years for those things. We started a business in our twenties and we sacrificed everything we had for all of those years to make it work. We owned almost all of it outright…….but, when I told him that the business was struggling….this is what he did….
Sooooo…..there it was….all in a row……all of our stuff…..out in our field."

She then goes on to say that their lawn became over-run with weeds instead of being perfectly coiffed, as it had been in years past.


Well, their neighbors were none-too-happy about a tacky neon sign being on the side of the road and the weeds to boot...so they began to complain. In response to one of their complaints, her husband nailed one neighbor with a doozy of a retort:

“Sir,” he said, “There was a time in this country, in this community…when if you drove past your neighbor’s house and saw every single thing they own was for sale in front of their house…and that their lawn had not been mowed for weeks….that you would stop and say….WHAT IS GOING ON, SOMETHING MUST BE TERRIBLY WRONG, WHAT CAN I DO TO HELP YOU?”

Of course, with the good Christian guilt coursing through his veins, the neighbor quickly apologized and began to help them sell....their stuff.


Alllllll that stuff.


The blog concludes with the author wishing we could ALL wear signs so that people would just BE KIND, darn it!


The topping on the woe is me, of course, is the 186 comments thanking her for sharing and, of course, as many people are wont to do, a litany of their own woes in their comments... . One-hundred and eighty-six of them.


Kindness. Compassion. How are they different than "nice?"


I'll tell you what I think. I think that kindness and compassion are active; they are sentient and conscious.


Niceness is not. Niceness is inanimate, passive. If you dive in a pool of "nice", you'd break your damned neck. Nice is nothing.


I'm sure the blog author is nice. I'm sure all of her neighbors would classify her as nice. But I'm going to quote a hymn--that's right, one of my mother's favorite hymns.


Hymn #223


Have I Done Any Good

Have I done any good in the world today?
Have I helped anyone in need?
Have I cheered up the sad and made someone feel glad?
If not, I have failed indeed.

Has anyone’s burden been lighter today
Because I was willing to share?
Have the sick and the weary been helped on their way?
When they needed my help was I there? 

Then wake up and do something more
Than dream of your mansion above.
Doing good is a pleasure, a joy beyond measure,
A blessing of duty and love.

There are chances for work all around just now,
Opportunities right in our way.
Do not let them pass by, saying, “Sometime I’ll try,”
But go and do something today.

’Tis noble of man to work and to give;
Love’s labor has merit alone.
Only he who does something helps others to live.
To God each good work will be known.

***


I've got to wonder. How did kindness and compassion fit into her life before her husband's accident? How active was she in her neighbor's lives, that when the accident happened, she couldn't call one for help? Could it be, perhaps, that she was just a little too busy with her trucks, her T-Bird, her boat? All of those children? Fun? Creativity? 


I wonder.


See, I can't judge, folks because I don't know. I can't say one way or the other, because her blog makes no mention whatsoever of her good works, her thoughtfulness toward others. Her blog makes no mention of the people she actively helps and loads she lightens. In fact, the only information we get, the only specifics were......her stuff.


I see people downtown waiting for the bus. Their legs are curled onto a wooden platform and the wheels attached to it is how they move from place to place. I'm not sure they've ever been on a boat.

I see single mother's trying to feed their children, and I'm not sure they have a giant farm to go home to. Weeds, or no. Perhaps not even a home.


I see them, I watch for it in their eyes as I peruse the aisles in stores, on the street. I can see the pain and desperation in their eyes. And you know what?

They don't need a sign. If you pay attention, you know.

As David Whyte writes in my all-time favorite poem Self-Portrait:

"It doesn't interest me if there is one god 
or many gods,
I want to know if you belong or feel abandoned.
If you know despair and can see it in others..."

Can you? Can you see despair? Or are you so busy being nice, looking nice on the outside, that you miss it entirely? Does the blog author have any knowledge of any pain outside of her own? How about the incredible 186 commentors who open their coats to show us their "Wares of Woe?"


I know a woman who is married to a paraplegic. She has devoted over twenty-five years to him, and people talk about how selfless and good she is. One small thing I should mention: the man to whom she is married is horrifically abusive to her. Verbally, mentally and even physically at times. Her children can barely stand to be around them, because they can't stomach watching their mother be disrespected and abused constantly.


Tell me, oh, bleeding hearts; is she good? Is she nice? Is she kind? What is she? 


Simple. She is a prime example of when "nice" turns horrid. She is an example of what true compassion would be, COULD be, if she had the courage to leave him.


There is a particular area in our lives where K and I have been nice. Nice, nice, nice. According to everyone around--although with no appreciation or acknowledgement from them, we were nice.


But over the course of time, we realized that the "nice" had turned horrid. We realized that, like with many other aspects of our lives, it was time for us to be kind and compassionate. But the kindness and compassion didn't feel particularly good. "Nice" felt better because people approved of "nice". 


Our kindness, love and compassion had to come in the form of revoking our "nice." It was and is the most compassionate thing we could have done, and it was done out of love, care and deep concern.


But now...we are no longer "nice."


I'd like to say that bothers me, but it doesn't (see above). As a bitch, I never seek out to do harm on purpose, to be treacherous or ruinous. I protect those I love, I say what I mean, I am honest and I don't expect that people NOT make mistakes; but I do expect that they pay for them. B-I-T-C-H. Yep. That's me.

The biggest problem I see with the blog author, the people who commented, the people around me and us....they can only see as far out as the end of their own noses. Me. Me. Me.


Many don't need that sign around their necks. 


Many use their verbal skills to say what a sign would.


"Poor me. Poor me. Poor me."


Okay. What about poor him? What about poor her?


Has it occurred to them that someone has it worse?


The blog author wanted to tell us to stop thinking of ourselves and realize that....she has problems too!


She does the very thing she eschews--she isn't showing kindness to anyone. She's placing a giant, neon sign around her neck. And 186 people followed suit.


Anyone spending one single day at the VA hospital or homeless shelter wouldn't have the balls to write, "Woe is me, we lost our boat."


And, with this lofty blog post of mine, what good have I done in the world today? Do I put my money where my mouth is?


I like to think so. My eyes are constantly open and seeking the eyes of those in despair. Unfortunately for many people, however, I seem to miss those with the giant, neon signs hanging around their necks entirely. Those folks are getting their payoff with their sign. They don't need me.


And while their busy making all of their signs, I'll be busy trying to practice what I preach. And it isn't nice.






Chowder