It was an acorn of a deed, but to the recipient, it was a towering oak that provided shade and shelter, 17 personal accounts of goodness
So many of us have been touched deeply by another’s goodness. When Family First asked writers to tell them about the greatest kindness they’d experienced they were overwhelmed by the volume of responses.
So many seeds bearing such beautiful fruit. Below a taste of the bounty for Tu B’Shevat.
17 personal accounts of goodness
Rivka Miriam Siegal
If my son’s likes could be summed up in a category, it would be under the heading: “Things That Hum.” Air conditioners, refrigerators, washers, dryers, pretty much any major appliance fascinates him endlessly.
These aren’t normal interests for a young boy. He’s autistic, you see, and his angelic good looks stopped saving him from scrutiny when he was around six years old.
We’d be guests at a Shabbos table, the adults laughing, when suddenly a cavalry of young children would burst into the room. They’d announce, “Your son is in the laundry room,” in the same sort of tone one might use to alert others to the presence of a serial killer. At the alarmed looks of the other adults around the table, I’d get up and go over to my son, pacing by a washing machine, and reprimand him loudly, so the others would hear and be relieved. “No washing machines!”
My son would stop in his tracks and stare at me, baffled and hurt. He’s barely verbal, hardly the menace many other parents believe him to be. For hours after the visit, he would sweetly beg to be hugged and kissed, teary-eyed, knowing somehow he needed to atone, but not knowing why. The two of us would be left with lingering feelings of shame. In some of these dark times, my prayer would be, “Thank You, Hashem, for teaching me humility.”
Once, I marched boldly with him to a different friend’s house, steeling myself for a tough visit, yet determined not to hide. As soon as we were let in with a gracious “Hello!” my son bolted to parts unknown. I smiled brightly and pretended this was normal, and sat with my friend to talk.
Minutes later, children ran breathless into the room, anxious to tell us whatever strange thing my son was doing. My friend raised a hand to stop them and said, “Don’t worry about it. It’s fine.”
“But…!”
“It’s fine,” she repeated, sternly. And then, softer, to me, “It’s fine.”
That was the time I prayed differently. “Thank You, Hashem, for showing me kindness.”
Esther Malka Goldschmidt
My baby was born in the darkness of a bitter winter. The bris was beautiful, but then all the guests left. I was up (up again? still up?) at five-thirty a.m. when my husband left too, for his commute to work. That left me with a bunch of tiny little kids to get up and out to school —which included driving the two youngest to their playgroups.
It was snowing. My brain was foggy with fatigue. I bundled up the tiny newborn baby and the other two kids; the weather was bad, so I took them out in shifts.
The first drop-off was easy — there was a driveway right to the door, and he could go in alone. But the next stop was across town: I battled the morning traffic, searched for a parking spot, unloaded toddler and newborn, trudged down the block and up three flights of stairs, lugging the bulky infant seat the whole way. Then it was like a Dr. Seuss book: back down the stairs, back down the block, back into the car, back across town….
When I staggered through the front door an hour later, I simply lay down right there on the stone entryway floor. I couldn’t walk another step.
Four hours later I had to do the whole thing again, in reverse.
And repeat the next day.
And the next.
I don’t remember how many days this went on before Brochie called. I knew Brochie vaguely. She had six kids. She worked.
But it was “no problem,” she claimed, for her to drop off my kids and she was “going in that direction anyway.” She didn’t get scared off by the weather or the traffic or the three flights of stairs or how late she’d get to work each day.
Brochie drove my kids until my baby was about one month old. To this day, years later, whenever I mention her name, a sense of gratitude overwhelms me and I invariably add, “She was the one who…” She claimed it was nothing. But to me, it was everything.
