Learning to Be Kind After School

by: Linda King

 

Last Tuesday was such a busy day for me. I had appointments scheduled in between picking my grandson up at school. Mason got out of school later than usual, so that meant I was going to have to make up some time somewhere.  As I was driving him to the house, we passed a van with the hood up, the tailgate up, giving us a view of the sweetest little girls in the back, and a man standing by the vehicle.  Mason looked at me and I told him we had no time to stop. After looking at his face, I backed my car up and Mason asked the man if he needed to use a phone. The little girls were smiling and waving. The man came to the window and shook Mason’s hand saying in a heavily accented voice that he had called AAA. He thanked us for stopping and said no one else had. Mason asked if we should wait with him, but again, we were thanked and we went on our way.

Yes, my schedule was messed up, but we both felt better.

We continued down the street and three blocks later, Mason loudly asked me to pull to the curb. When I did, Mason got out of the car. When I saw where he was going, I got out as well. An elderly woman with a walker was trying to unload groceries from her car. Now, my grandson Mason is 15 and is 6 feet 3 inches tall. I hurried to stand beside him when he approached this tiny woman so she didn’t think she was going to be mugged. Mason carried her groceries into her house, and again we were on our way.

limpingdogOur home is only 15 minutes from his school ordinarily.  But on this day, when I needed for everything to run on time, the road was much longer.

As we pulled onto our street, we both noticed a limping dog. We are a town with a leash law so dogs don’t run free. Mason got out of the car and got the dog to limp to him. I thought I might know where it lived. It wouldn’t get into the car so Mason walked it down the street.  He knocked on the door, found its owner and found that the dog had just had surgery.  It was supposed to be in the fenced backyard.

We proceeded to our own little home arriving exactly 1 hour after leaving the school.

I realized that no matter what plans we might make, life sometimes puts us in situations to do something good for someone else.

For whatever reason, we were meant to stay on that journey from school and keep learning.

What a long, wonderfully fulfilling trip.