Good deeds

I like random acts of kindness :D

There used to be a flower seller across the way from my old shop and often at the end of the Saturday he’d give me a bunch of flowers – not a big deal to him, he was only going to throw them away otherwise, but it was a nice way to end a long week. One day he came in and said “here you are, do something with those” and put 10 bunches of daffodils on my counter and walked out. Now I like daffodils, but 10 bunches?

As I locked up and was walking back to my car with all these flowers I passed the bus stops with 6 or 7 people waiting and it suddenly seemed like the most natural thing in the world to give the people a bunch of flowers each. Everyone looked surprised and everyone smiled but two people stick in my mind. One lady was there with her husband and was reluctant to take them – she was looking for the catch. I said no catch, I’ve been given them, I haven’t got enough vases for them all so I thought I’d spread the joy. She beamed and took a bunch and told me how she was on her way to visit her ailing mother and now she was going to spread the joy to and give the flowers to her – her face when I gave her a second bunch, one for her, one for her mum, was a picture! The last lady was standing at the end of the queue with her back to everyone, watching for the bus, so she hadn’t seen me handing the flowers out. I hesitated at first, she seemed to be deliberately ignoring me, perhaps she didn’t want any flowers? I didn’t want to leave her out though so I tapped her on the shoulder and as she turned around I saw the hearing aids – she hadn’t been ignoring me, she just didn’t know anything was going on behind her! I gave her the flowers and she burst into tears. I gave her a hug which she accepted then when she regained her composure she told me that she hadn’t had flowers since her husband died 2 years ago and how he had brought her flowers every payday without fail; also that no one had hugged her since he died.

It’s simple things…giving someone the 10p they are scrabbling in their purse for at the car park machine, treating someone to an unexpected coffee, just sitting and listening to someone who needs to talk, taking a casserole around to people who are going through tough times.

Does anyone else perform random acts of kindness?