My mother was a voracious "clipper", constantly clipping items from the newspaper. It wasn't unusual for me to get an envelope in the mail from her that contained an item she had snipped from the paper that she thought would interest me. Sometimes she would send a picture to which she added her own funny caption. What she didn't send off to her children she carefully tucked in between the pages of her many books. Everyone in the family knew that you better carefully go through any book of my mother's before giving it away.
Just this past week I finally was able (emotionally) to go through the few boxes of my mother's personal things that were carefully packed up for us by the nursing home after she passed away. Among the things that she brought with her to the nursing home were her clippings. Clippings of things that she wanted to remember, and that she also wanted us to remember. A majority of the clippings dealt with the importance of kindness and being good to one another. Items such as this....
"There is so much good in the worst of us and so much bad in the best of us that it ill behooves any of us to talk about the rest of us".
And one her favorite John Wesley quotes.... "Do all the good you can. By all the means you can. In all the places you can. At all the times you can. To all the people you can. As long as ever you can."
If I could have a dollar for every time she drilled those ideas into my young head I would never have to rely on social security to get me through the rest of my life. Her value on kindness extended into all of our lives for we often found ourselves sharing our Thanksgiving table with a stranger who had no family. She would sometimes seek out the social services in her area to find the name of someone who was in need of family at that "family" time of year. One year she had the "wonderful" idea of having a "sacrificial meal". We had soup. The money that we would have spent on a turkey dinner was given to a family who were facing the day with the prospect of probably eating nothing more than soup. As children we rather rolled our eyes at my mother's kindness and generosity and hoped that she wouldn't make it an annual habit. As an adult it has imbedded itself in a corner of my brain and makes me wish I could be half as charitable as she.
Yes, she was kind and generous and charitable, but she almost demanded the same from those around her. I thought of her on my own birthday this year. She would have been so thrilled. Paul took me to Scarpelli's for my birthday dinner. Scarpelli's was a teen hang-out when we were young, a hamburg/hot dog/grinder type of place where you placed your order at the window and brought it back to your car. Today it has evolved into a sit-down restaurant, know for good but relatively inexpensive food. It still caters to the same crowd who are mostly 60+ now. As we were sitting there eating our birthday dinner of an eggplant grinder one of Paul's clients came in, a man who also taught where I worked at the Middle School. Ed jokingly looked at Paul and said "Oh God! Is this the best you can do for her for her birthday?!!" and then sat in the booth behind us to eat his non-birthday dinner. I ordered my favorite dessert, carrot cake, and was surprised to see it arrive with a candle and a birthday serenade by most of the restaurant. Surprised because Paul just doesn't do that. So I knew it wasn't him. The mystery was solved when the waitress dropped our check on the table and said "That will be $2.50." $2.50 for 2 grinders, drinks and cake?? Impossible. She pointed to Ed behind us and said "He paid for $20.00 of your dinner. Happy Birthday". It made my day. It would have thrilled my mother to know that someone was passing the kindness on. Thank you, Eddie, for keeping the kindness going. The world needs more people like you. You're the best!!
