The Sweetness of Doing the Most Perfect Thing Ever

Wednesday night I was vacuuming up the gazillion bits of a dog treat that Stan had shredded all over the family room floor.

Perhaps my frustration with the mess was the spark that ignited it, but I could suddenly feel my eyes welling up. When Ned walked in and asked if I was ok, the tears started spilling out. The vacuum was still sucking away and I stood there sobbing. About nothing. About everything.

Without a word, he gently wrapped his arms around me and held me while I cried into his shirt.

I felt so sweetly comforted.

And then he did the most perfect thing ever.

Still snugging me just-right tight, he placed the sweetest, kindest kiss on my forehead.

I felt so sweetly safe.

It was exactly what I needed right then.

All the words, reassurances, and what’s-the-matters were spoken in that forehead kiss.

Like most, Ned & I have a healthy amount of sweet and sour moments. I’m sure there are times he’d really like to thump me on the forehead. Sometimes kinda hard.

But in that moment, with me standing there blubbering for no specific reason, he chose the simplest of gestures.

He chose kindness.

That sweet kiss on the forehead reminded me of the healing power of kindness. It may not make your battle go away, but it definitely gives you the strength you need to keep fighting.

We all want to choose kindness, don’t we?

For me, like many, kindness comes naturally when my personal strength bucket is full. But it’s when I’m not feeling good about myself for some reason that my kindness muscle can get lazy.

The obvious twist is that each route feeds itself: being kind makes us feel good so we are even kinder and being an a-hole makes us feel bad so we’re a bigger a-hole. I experienced this firsthand the day I realized there’s Nothing Sweet About Driving Like an A-Hole, although…let’s just say that’s still a work in progress.

We need to choose kindness every chance we get, don’t we?

Back to Wednesday night – Ned was being pulled in so many directions. He was swamped with work. And fighting a major cold. And Nanny McPhee Raleigh desperately needed him to pull her tooth.

Nanny McPhee called. She wants her snaggletooth back.

But he chose kindness.

Although it didn’t magically dry up my tears, it definitely gave me a big dose of sweet strength to better understand what was going on and explore options for making things better.

It also gave me (a little extra) strength to deal with more of this –

Ruh roh.

 I wonder when Stanley will understand the vicious cycle of being an a-hole?

Let’s choose kindness. The cycle starts with each one of us, in big and small ways, in all aspects of our lives.

If your kindness muscle gets lazy, as it may, as I know mine will, there are always forehead kisses.

Sweetly,
kristi