Not long ago on my own writing space, I made mention of a parent whom I felt was slighted because of her race. It wasn’t lost on me that, in education, we sometimes treat parents differently based on their race. The look on that mother’s face and the realization that she was a mother and a fellow human being affected me deeply.

It came to mind today when one of my students was rushed to the emergency room for chest pains. I found out about it while I was eating my lunch and immediately after doing supervision duty for that lunch shift, I left school for the hospital.

Another mother.

Another Black woman.

Another scared human being worrying about her child, her baby.

It occurs to me that this is a simple story, but one in which I know that some small gesture on my part that didn’t cost me anything could mean the difference to her today. I may never know what that difference is or the size of the dent it created. Perhaps it is very, very small and she thought nothing of it. It is possible that it may never occur to her ever again, but it did do something for me.

There is no reward for caring about people except what is intrinsically felt and I knew that a mere 15 minutes of my day was worth caring about her and her son. (He’s ok, by the way. Thanks for asking.)

It may be that I made a difference today. I don’t need to know how. Mostly that difference was in me.

Have you made a difference? What has inspired you to do so? I hope to feature inspiring stories of people making a difference in small and large ways.

Just reading about the things people do for others gives me hope. Drop me an e-mail at mocha (underscore) momma (at) hotmail (dot) com and you can be featured.

Share the love, folks. Our poor neglected collected souls could use it.