“A Cup of Kindness,” Sept. 11, 2024

This is not a column. I retired, so I don’t write columns any more. This is just a story I’d like to tell you. It’s a true story and, as always, truth needs to be told.
My brother and I live too far apart. He’s in South Carolina, I’m in California, but we phone each other several times a week.
Joe was born totally blind with cerebral palsy, conditions that weaken him in some ways, but steel him in others. If you try to pity him, he will gladly teach you not to get in his way.
This morning he left me a message: “Sister, call me back. I’ve got a great story to tell you.”
For Joe, a “great story” can be anything from getting a good report from his doctor to finding a toothpaste cap he’d dropped.
He answered on the first ring.
“Hey, Sister! Good to hear from you!” Then came the story.
This morning when he tried to make coffee, his coffee pot appeared to be broken.
“I tried everything. Checked the plug. Kept pushing buttons. But dagnabit, nothin’ worked!”
So he went out to sit on the porch. Sitting on the porch is our family’s tradition. It’s a place where arguments are temporarily set aside and worries are nearly forgotten.
He felt a breeze on his face, smelled bacon frying nearby and tilted his head to hear birds singing hymns in the trees.
“It was a fine, fine morning,” he said. “We’ve had some hot weather lately, and I mean HOT. Whoowee! But this was nice!”
Joe lives alone in low-income housing he once shared with his wife, Tommie Jean. She, too, was blind. They walked hand-in-hand for 10 good years, until he lost her 20 years ago to cancer.
As he sat there, thinking about Tommie Jean and others in our family who’ve left this world for the next, he heard voices.
“It sounded like people across the street at some housing that was built for homeless people. I couldn’t tell what they were saying, but it sounded nice. For some reason, I don’t know why, I yelled ‘Good morning!’ And a woman yelled back, “Good morning, Sir! How’s your day?”
Joe answered her with a laugh, “Well, it’s good, except my coffee maker didn’t work so I’m doing without my coffee!”
He waited, but heard no reply.
“I started worrying I might’ve said something wrong.”
Minutes later, Joe heard the woman’s voice again, softer this time, at his porch steps.
“Sir,” said the woman, “would you like a cup of coffee?”
That, he said, lit him up like Christmas. He hooted, “I surely would, thank you, ma’am!”
She held out the cup. He took it slowly with both hands. It felt smooth and round and warm. They exchanged a few more neighborly pleasantries. Then she stepped off the porch and said, “You can keep the cup.”
“No, no!” Joe told her. “Please! You can come get it anytime!”
Then she left him to drink his coffee (black, no sugar or cream, sweetened only with kindness, just the way he likes it) sitting on his porch, grinning like a mule eating briars.
That’s a simple story. But even the simplest stories sometimes speak of something profound.
What it spoke to me is this: No matter what we see or hear or read, we need to remember and never forget that this world we call home is filled to the brim with far more good than evil. More hope than fear. More truth than lies. More joy than sorrow.
Nothing is greater proof of that goodness than simple acts of kindness. A smile in passing. A tear in parting. An offer to help in any way we can.
Look around you. Where do you see good in the world? I saw it clearly this morning, and will again in days ahead, picturing the grin of a blind man sitting on his porch drinking a cup of kindness from a neighbor.
“Sister?” Joe said. “That just might’ve been the best cup of coffee I’ve ever had.”
Then he added, “I sure coulda used another cup.”

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