Small Kindnesses

Small Kindnesses ©

By Michael Casey

I was in Aldi today, it’s part of my cardiac rehabilitation, its 30 mins walking, up the road and around the store and back home again. I cannot carry much as my chest is tight after being opened up and then sown up again. So I wander around and then bring home what I can carry. Today it was salmon steaks from Norway, which are cheaper than the smoked salmon, cheaper and you get 20% more. I also tried low fat Greek style yogurt.

Now as I struggled for the change the pretty Muslim girl on the checkout helped put my shopping in my Lidl shopping bag. It’s a joke I play on Aldi, I use Lidl carrier bags to take home my shopping. Previously I shared a joke about Tasers with the shop manager, the machine she uses to count stock looks like a Taser, she has a law degree you know, or so I have been informed by the bodybuilder who stacks the shelves.  

Now this is maybe the way shops used to be 40 years ago, or my local Aldi just has nice people working there. I did in fact write a play called Shoplife years ago, it was accepted for the stage though not finally produced, it is on Amazon.

Now to the point, the point is that simple kindnesses do make a difference, you can brighten up a person’s day, just by sparing a little time. Time to chat, to share a joke, or just help them with their shopping, or hold a door open. I was a concierge for 3 years in a 4 star deluxe business hotel, so I have practiced what I preach. I’m speaking from experience.

Now as I have been forced to slow down, and I can only just about put my socks and shoes on as bending is painful and sometimes impossible, I really do appreciate the small kindnesses. The little things do matter and they do make a difference, they are a smile, a ray of sunshine, a reassuring hand, a steadying hand. Being forced to slow down does make you look at things differently, just as being in a wheelchair either temporarily or always makes your perspective different.

So thanks to everybody who has been offering me small kindnesses, the old women, 90 plus in age who have been praying for me, they are my mother’s contemporaries, I went to school  with their children. To those who don’t even know they have helped me, because kindness is in their nature. Obviously a big thank you to the NHS, I will bring the chocolate to the wards when I have enough strength to carry it down the longest hospital corridor in Europe.

That’s all for today, I get tired more easily so I have to cut my computer time down, though the house is quieter as the girls have gone back to school. We finally let the cat out of the bag and told my wife that I had bought my small daughter a new coat  as the one grannie in Shanghai had given her was way too big. It will be used eventually, in a year or two when she is in Year 8. We did enjoy speaking in Spanish behind mum’s back, saying that she still hadn’t spotted the new coat, but yesterday we let the cat out of the bag, six months after the holidays to China.