The Old Man’s Kindness

Across the street from my house, an eighty-three year old man lives with his wife of about 60 years.  The thing that impresses me most about this gentlemen is his willingness to do random acts of kindness, which I have seen him do for over 20 years.  I’ll give two examples.

I first received a good deed in 1999, when I had just moved into my house and we were bombarded by Tropical Storm Floyd.  The torrential rain and strong winds were beating down on my old house, and the roof above the den was leaking badly.  I had numerous buckets out to catch the steady stream of water coming through the ceiling.  (The person hired by the previous owners to patch the roof had put the flashing on wrong, so that water drained under it instead of over it.)  My neighbor, who is a carpenter by trade, climbed onto the den roof in the middle of the storm and hammered plywood to it in order to reduce the flow of water coming into my house.  I stepped outside to watch my neighbor a bit, and I can still picture him, a 60-year-old man soaking wet, standing steadily in the wind and rain, working on the roof.  He expected nothing in return.

The most recent random act of kindness happened after a blizzard this February.  After clearing his own driveway with a snow blower, he came across the street and cleared the most challenging spot on mine, where a snowplow had made a large mound that blocked the entrance. My neighbor’s old snow blower is heavy, yet here he was, an old man pushing the machine, doing a favor for me.  I’m sure it should have been the other way around.

I have thanked my neighbor, baked cookies for him and his wife, and offered to help him with his yardwork (he rarely takes me up on this), but it does not seem like enough.  So, I try to pay it forward by doing random acts of kindness for others.

Random acts of kindness, big or small, always make me smile.  My neighbor has brightened many days for me, and I am grateful.