Making someone’s day made my day!

As I do every time I go out and about, I observe other people around me and often catch snippets of information as I pass by. My husband says I am just nosy, but I say years of working as a Social Worker makes me more attuned to the world around me and what people are doing.

As it happens from time to time, the local supermarkets have giveaways at the moment with qualifying spend. The main supermarket that we use is Woolworths and they are currently giving away things called “Ooshies” which are cute little Disney characters. .

Anyway, there was a woman with two young children, perhaps 6 & 8 or thereabouts. Their Mum had let them get the case that you can buy to put them in and display their Ooshies. The children looked so excited and were obviously looking forward to filling the case. I glanced at the woman’s trolley and she only had a small amount and probably would only have got two of the toys, if that. I have been getting the Ooshies and just giving them to friends, but on that day we spent quite a bit and got a fist full of the things. So, when the checkout operator was finishing scanning our groceries in readiness to pay she asked if I was collecting Ooshies and I said that I was. She handed over a paper bag full of Ooshies and I walked up to the woman and said, “Here, take these for your kiddies” she was surprised and said “Thank you” and the kids had huge smiles on their faces as they anticipated getting home and checking out their hoard. I walked out with a huge smile on my face and it made me feel good to know I had maybe made their day. I said to my husband, “I think I made her day!” he replied, “I think you made the children’s day!” to which I replied, “If you make someone’s children’s day, you automatically make theirs too!”

Doesn’t it feel good to do something nice for someone else!? It cost me nothing – the groceries I had to have anyway – but who knows how the young Mum’s day, week, month or year has been? My little gesture may be the one bright spot she has had in that day or longer. A kind gesture on my part made two children, one Mum and some other children’s Nanna (me) happy by just sharing and caring.

It’s a simple thing isn’t it! Handing over something to another person that put a smile on their face for at least a little while. The little kindnesses we do, like picking up something someone has dropped who might have trouble bending down. Or perhaps reaching something on a top shelf in a supermarket for someone who can’t quite reach. Holding a door open for someone with a walker, or a buggy or holding a toddler by the hand, or giving up your seat on the bus for someone elderly or for a pregnant woman. Little things that reach out and connect us, if only for a brief moment in time, that someone we don’t know and may never know has shown caring towards us or us to them. That simple selfless act can change the course of someone’s day, the sun may shine a little brighter, the air smell a little sweeter and our hearts feel a little lighter because someone did some small thing for us.

No matter what happens in any of our lives, there will be challenges along the way. We may be in pain, we may be forgetful, we may have tremors or speech issues or any of the many symptoms of Parkinson’s. But for me, taking a moment to check in to what is happening around me, as I did when I noticed the two young children with their Mum, takes me away from all that. Just for that moment at least I wasn’t thinking of me, I wanted to do something nice for them and so I did. For the rest of that day I held onto that little moment in my memory and every time I thought of it, it made me smile.

Who knows, if we give a little kindness into the world, a little of it may come back to us in the future. We all have moments when a smile, a gesture, a nod of understanding makes us feel less alone and makes us feel seen.

As a popular song goes:

If you see your brother standing by the road
With a heavy load from the seeds he sowed
And if you see your sister falling by the way
Just stop and say you're goin' the wrong way
You've got to try a little kindness yes show a little kindness
Yes shine your light for everyone to see
And if you'll try a little kindness and you'll overlook the blindness
Of the narrow minded people on the narrow minded streets
Don't walk around the down and out lend a helping hand instead of doubt
And the kindness that you show every day will help someone along their way
You've got to try a little kindness...
You've got to try a little kindness...