Some lessons in decency don’t need applause—they just need doing.
When we were kids, life taught us early how far a nickel could stretch—and how often it didn’t. We’d walk the streets collecting bottles and cans, hoping to scrape enough together for a sugar rush at the corner store. Back then, they were Mom-and-Pop joints, the kind where everyone knew your name and your running tab of trouble. We’d stand at the candy rack, counting and recounting our coins, trying to game the system and get the most candy for the least cash. Never worked out like we wanted. Especially when a new treat hit the shelf, shiny and out of reach.
Fast forward a few decades. I’m in one of those little grocery stores that somehow survived the big-box purge. I catch sight of two kids doing that same math on the floor, coins spread out like a desperate poker hand. Something about it yanked me backward in time, to the weight of nickels in a sweaty palm and the taste of wanting more than you could buy.
So I slid the cashier a few bills and told her to make sure those kids didn’t have to choose between sour worms and chocolate that day. The store owner, in his well-meaning way, pointed me out like some small-town hero. The kids lit up, grinning at me like I’d handed them the moon.
And that’s the part I hated. Not the kids’ smiles—hell, that’s the good stuff—but the fact that it wasn’t supposed to have my name on it. My father brought strangers home, gave them a meal, a place to sleep for the night, and never said a word about it. My stepmom told me those stories later, like family lore whispered over coffee. I grew up believing you do what’s right, no matter the cost. I didn’t understand this then, but as I got older, it began to resonate.
Kindness, the way I learned it, is quiet. It’s supposed to slip in, do its work, and leave without a sound. That day, the sound of my name broke the rule I was raised on.
Memoirs of Madness 