(Sorry I managed to screw up posting two weeks in a row. But my computer BROKE yesterday. New computer today! Yay.)

My mom is over 80. She recently got a letter in the mail from someone she had gone to grammar school with.

The letter was from a woman, Jill, who had been in the same school but who was a little younger than my mom. Jill said that she had been trying for years to track my mother down because she wanted to thank her.

It seems that my mother had been very kind to Jill when no one else was. Jill said she had been an abused child with a horrible home life, and she often came to school dirty and hungry.  My mother’s kindness, 7 decades before, had given Jill hope and the memory had warmed her heart many times in the intervening years.

Here’s the kicker: my mom does not remember Jill at all. She has searched her memory and come up blank.

Some small kindness, so insignificant that it didn’t leave a trace in my mother’s mind, was like a warm hug that Jill received over and over.

The way we move through the world, the way we look on people, our tone of voice – it is all important. We are either contributing to or detracting from a better world.

My teacher Mary used to say “We should be thankful that we are given so many chances to do things differently.”

I am thankful, yes, every day.