Cake Without the Calories
There is a man outside my house shoveling my sidewalk. I can hear him chopping and scraping against the inches of slush and ice that has collected on my concrete path and driveway. It’s a miserable job; unending and one that Sisyphus himself could totally get into. Push the slush, watch it slosh back. Repeat a thousand times. He’s doing it without my asking him to. I don’t even know his last name.
It’s been a winter of multiple snow storms, freezing rain, regular old wet rain, and wind. I want to go outside and help the man. I want to rush out and thank him. I want to bake him the crustiest loaf of warm bread and deliver it to his family with the best butter Wisconsin makes, but I’m crying. I’m sobbing really.
This is what kindness does for me. Kindness unravels me.
I’m a tough nut otherwise. I can manage death without tears, pain makes me rage and then throw up, and watching videos of people falling on the ice doubles me over with unsympathetic hilarity.
But kindness.* Oh my God, kindness.
The shoveling man is my new neighbor around the corner. When I moved in during this past summer, he brought me tomatoes from his back garden that borders my yard. In the fall his wife delivered a kind of buttery applesauce, the apples from their orchard in Minnesota. The woman across the street who owns the apartments that face my house ran over in December with a Christmas cactus, and I was invited to a solstice party just down the block, only on the basis of my new geography. Each time. Tears for Ann.
I cry at parades with marching bands that play John Phillip Sousa; stars and stripes forever. When the piccolos play their stirring staccato (see for yourself at 3:00 min here https://youtu.be/a-7XWhyvIpE) I have to put on my sunglasses. I complain about the ragweed and talk about allergies and rub my eyes.
Don’t even get me started watching runners during a race. When people call out in support holding signs that say. YAY Aunt Mary or Go Random Stranger I choke up and feel such love and hope and what? What is it that makes me cry? Humanity?
I’m not sure. I was at Disney over president’s day weekend watching my good friend’s daughter dance, and the crowds of humanity there did not bring me to tears. I slathered on hand sanitizer and had a cold brew coffee to feel safe. But the cheers for my friend’s daughter did make me cry. It was embarrassing.
When my parents were ill and died this past year, I told my friend losing them so quickly felt surreal. It was like I had been carrying a heavy box around and now, with them gone, I don’t know where to put it. I was afraid if I put the metaphorical box down, my arms would float to the sky untethered by the burden of their illness and death. I had to keep the box otherwise what would I do with my guilt and grief and conversations left at the bedside? I still had work to do.
So, there were no tears for me at the hospital or hospice.
It was at my father’s funeral I said to a guest, “Please don’t be nice to me. You’ll only make me cry more.” He put his hand on my shoulder, and I proceeded to cry harder.
I think I cry at kindness because it is such a gift. It is a kite without a string. Cake without the calories. Love without the burden.
I think it’s the love that makes me cry and my crying is not sorrowful but joy, like steam released into the world so that it can float back down in the form of kindness for others to catch and deliver in the form of shoveling, or cheering, or a smile.
That’s all I’m going to say on this topic. I don’t want to look too closely at it because I secretly love it. Otherwise, I’d think I was a psychopath. (*See above). Ask my friend Katie who while watching a sad show together, I sat dry-eyed and she asked if I was made of stone.
So, now, If you’ll excuse me. I’m going to go bake some bread and deliver it to the man who shoveled my sidewalk and try not to make a crying fool of myself.
I cry at the broadcast of every Olympics AND every time I hear Waltzing Matilda…I can’t even sing it. I have no idea why
Awwww YES, I get it. Waltzing Matilda has something in it that makes you feel like you lived before and that life was a little sad!!
I am the soulmate of the guy who cries every time he hears WALTZING MATILDA … when a plane I was on once landed in Australia, that song came on the speaker system and about 48% of the passengers burst into tears.
Awwww. You cry faster than I do!!
Bag pipes — that’s all I have to say… except maybe if he’s cute and wearing a kilt! 🙂
understood. hahaha
I get it. I can cry at the “Star Spangled Banner,” but I didn’t cry when my FIL died.
I know I was so busy taking care of things at the house, managing my sons (13, 22, 20), one had an oral surgery, I picked up a relative at the airport, I never even took time for myself. I just did what needed to be done.
After we bought our first house, I bought some plants, but I realized I didn’t have a hand spade. I used a large spoon–I could sanitize it in the dishwasher. A few hours later, the neighbor girl brought me a brand new hand spade. Her mom saw what I was doing and bought me one. That’s the unexpected kindness that brings me to tears. We both moved away and lost touch, but I still have the hand spade.
This story made me tear up. The thought that someone saw that you needed something and gave it.
It’s breathtaking.
brb crying
Same.
Guilt. When people are kind to me, the first thing I feel is guilt. I don’t deserve this – Why are they being so nice when I have not done one blasted thing for them? It’s hard to let kindness pour over you and just be thankful. I think your tears are the moments of kindness you let pour over you. Be glad for them – the tears, I mean. Next time, I’m going to let myself cry.
Please let yourself cry. As a favor to me. You deserve the kindness
This post reminded me of a man I knew who had survived the holocaust. He agreed to be interviewed even though he preferred not to be known as a survivor. He just wanted to be himself and enjoy his life without the stigma. During the interview the one recollection that brought him to tears was when he recalled a kindness given to him in the camp. A man said to him, “What could a young boy like you ever have to done to have been brought to a place such as this? There is nothing you could have done to cause this.”
Oh my. This gives me pause. Doesn’t it? Even in the worst places kindness exists.
The Bible says it’s God’s kindness that leads us to repentance. He made us that way. I’m just like you. A lot of things make me angry. But kindness makes me cry.
Well, I guess I’m happy for that kindness 🙂 Thank you for this.
I love you, Ann Garvin, for always (after reading your words) leaving me with a warm heart and huge smile!
Thank you!!! So lovely to e-know you for so long.
Acts of kindness are glimpses of God’s grace in action. When I feel tears well up or the lump in my throat, I want to be a better person too.
That is so true!! Awwww.
Watching my son as he rides in the arena astride a beautiful horse always gets me. That, and the last scene in “Secretariat” when the big red horse blows past the competition with trumpets blazing. Love your words Ann—always spot on.
Thank you Vicky and thank you for yours.
Mostly I cry for happy. Mostly. Today I cried when we put our dog down. Those tears snuck up on me and made me mad, but I let them come. He was a good dog. When my dad died, I realized I mourned the (different) dog we’d lost more than I did my own father. Eh. I don’t get it, but that’s life.
That is life. I’m so sorry you lost your beloved dog. 🙂
A beautiful post and your sharing is a kindness that made me cry