Random Kindness: When Someone Cares!

First published on June 3, 2013--republishing it today since I saw a pair of gloves on the ground.  The gloves were on the ground but above snow. I am wondering, either they were recently dropped or it had been lost in snow for a few days, emerged only in the last few days when it was slightly warm and sun had parted the 'snow shades'!!

A lone glove, waiting to be claimed.  House 12 at the university!!

When someone cares!

When someone cares he/she pays attention!

When someone cares he/she stops for an act of random kindness!

When someone cares and shows—we know that they have beating heart!

I remember a friend who grew up in Wisconsin had once told me that ‘We kept our doors open all winter, just in case someone was stranded and needed to come in at night’

So, I do not agree when people say that people in cold places have cold hearts.

Here in Sweden, which climate-wise can be easily called God Forsaken—I have seen such random acts of Kindness. One of them is visible in the a special care taken for the lost gloves, hats and other winter accessories. 

In Sweden, once carries a gazillion things in winter and is bound to drop them several times.  Loosing a glove, a hat, an earmuff is quite common.  And people are used to seeing many accessories half buried in snow.  But often I have noticed the kindness of people in the way they pick these things up, shake the snow off and place them in a place so that  the owner can easily locate them.  Sometimes tied to a door handle, sometimes placed on a pile of snow turned into ice, sometimes hung on a low hanging branch of an old tree.

Sometimes stuck to a wall in a hallway….like in the picture above.

Can you imagine the face of a person who is looking for the scarf that was a gift from her grandmother to her age ten?  She is sad for a days only to find the scarf carefully placed on a branch of a tree.  For a moment, she feels united with her grandmother. A sigh leaves her --and she mutters a thank you--that no is around to hear.  She is happy all day--and decides to bake a cake for her younger sister--who she usually chides!!  

She may not even connect the two events, but it was that random act of kindness that brought about a swelling in her heart!!

In many such acts of random kindness, the beneficiary and the benefactor may never meet.  But in the asynchronous transaction something very simple is exchanged.

Two hearts-have acknowledged the power of caring, stopping a few minutes, and living consciously!!