A couple nights ago, I told my nephews (just before they went to bed) that we would be going on an adventure when they woke up in the morning… a secret mission. Since we had just watched the movie, Octopussy – James Bond, they were extra excited at the sound of those words, and could hardly contain their little bodies from jumping and trembling with delight.

Morning came… and I finally revealed the mission… we would spend the day spreading random acts of kindness.

After their crinkled faces of disappointment faded away, they decided to trust and believe that, if I said it, then it must be something cool… and they would jump in head first, even if their initial gut reaction was suspicious, puzzled curiosity….

While we ate our bowls of Sugar Pops and Apple Jacks, we carefully and seriously brainstormed a list of as many things as we could think of. Each new idea, more genius than the previous, lit up their faces like a sunbeam rainbow rocket (?)… and they totally got into it…

Hand-drawn cards to send to each of their grandparents. More fancy cards to send to their playmate friends (who live directly across the street). “Uncle Mikey, why are we going to use a stamp to send a card across the street??”

Some classics, like putting quarters in parking meters, hiding money and change in the sandbox of the nearby neighborhood park’s playground for other kids to find. Happy-thought, have-a-nice-day, fortune-cookie-style notes to sneak into their neighbor’s mailboxes. Picking a bowl of fresh blackberries off their backyard blackberry bush, and hand delivering to an unsuspecting next door neighbor. Dropping cut-out coupons in the aisles of the grocery store next to the respective sale items.

We were on a roll and had come up with quite a nice lengthy list.

After the drawing part was over, we addressed all the cards, packed up our box of “kindness-bombs” and hit the street… went through a restaurant’s drive-thru window and paid for the car behind us. “Uncle Mikey, what if they have a family with 15 kids and order a giant amount of food?” Me: “That’s the risk we take. Kindness will not be stopped!”

We took our lunch to the park and had a grande time talking about thoughtfulness and kindness and why they’re so cool. Afterwards, we scoured the entire park, picking up trash. There was another kid playing on the playground while his parents watched, so we had to be stealthy ninjas as we slyly dropped coins around the slide and the swings…

At the post office, while waiting in line, one of my nephews whispered, “Uncle Mikey, how about if we let that person go in front of us?” Excellent.
We then bought a few extra stamps, and sneakily placed them around the self-help stamp dispenser area, as a surprise for someone to find in their time of urgent need.

Everywhere we went, they handed out their “happy-thought” notes… to strangers on the street, to the postman on his route, to anyone we thought needed some happiness… they kept trying to think of new kind acts along the way…. our day’s secret mission was a successful blast…

A couple days later, they were so excited to tell me about their own new random acts of kindness… and how they gave a bottle of water to a homeless guy because it was hot outside… and to the gardening crew… and how they wanted their mom to buy a case of bottled water to keep in the car so they could give them out to any thirsty people they might see…

The fix-it man was here today… putting in a new kitchen counter top…. exciting. He’s about 40, I’d say. Always looks like he is between three different jobs at once… always working his butt off.… always sweating all over my floor…

He had to make several trips back and forth to the hardware store for parts, and to his workshop to cut and recut the granite before finally laying it in. I continued to work in the other room to stay out of his way.

A few hours in, he came to ask a couple questions about the kitchen’s water line, or something about the water valve… as he started to leave the room, he said, “So where’s the greenery?”

I had no idea what he was talking about. “Greenery?”

He repeated the question, as if saying it slower would somehow clear things up for me. I shrugged.

He then dug deep in his plumber’s pocket, and pulled out a giant bag of weed.

“Ah, GREENERY,” said I.

He had a proud ‘mine is bigger than yours’ face on and continued, “Ya, man. Where’s yours?”

I tried to diffuse and wash the shock off my face, couldn’t think of anything clever to say. “Well, there’s really no room here to grow it.”

He chuckled and went back to his mission in the kitchen.

Funny, I was a little touched and felt closer like we were friends, that he had that much trust and confidence in me to so openly brandish his 10 pound pot baggie right in my face.

By the end of the afternoon, his job was complete, I had my new sparkling kitchen. On his way out, he mentioned how he had to get the weed home to his wife. She is in the middle of chemo treatment for her crazy cancer…. in her liver, and a couple other places throughout her body… the doctors all say it’s now about simply prolonging any little life in her that’s left.

Up to that moment, I didn’t realize how much pain and anguish he was living in. You would never know it. He keeps it all to himself, tucked inside, and has always maintained a happy, life-is-grande disposition.

I am ashamed… all day long I had painted him so clearly and carelessly as a giant pot-head, with all my biases and profiling. I know it’s not the worst thing someone could think of you, but it slapped me in the face… stabbed me in the eye… I always thought I was superhuman and free of judging books by their covers…. but I definitely had done it.

Heavier still, it is so easy to forget how everyone has a hard life. Everybody. Nobody escapes. It’s hard. Sometimes it seems like ONLY heartbreak. You get dealt different cards, but in the end, everyone is broken and everyone has to get through it. It is a constant, pressing weight… and another kick in the pants reminder that my troubles are so small and menial, compared to everyone else.