Friday, March 9, 2012

A Small Act of Kindness

When you hear bad news, it can shake your faith, whatever form that takes.

When you see how some people respond to that bad news, it can help restore your faith.

After the last police officer and reporter had left the crash scene where 31-year old Nelvis Suyapa Garcia was killed, a man, his wife and three kids gathered at the site. Just an hour earlier, Garcia's weeping husband knelt and prayed and planted flowers in the ground at the base of a utility pole.

Now, as the light of the day was fading, this man and his family walked the scene--but not as curiosity seekers. I watched as the man knelt at the little roadside shrine and placed something of his own there. It was a candle. A candle he lit for Nelvis Garcia, a woman he'd never met. He didn't know it, but like his own wife, Nelvis was the mother of three. When I asked him about why he came, and why he brought the candle and struggled to keep it lit, he said it wouldn't bring her back, but he wanted to do something.  "It could have been me. It could have been any one of us."

As he gathered his family around him, and turned to walk back to his house, he put his arm around his wife. They took just a few steps like that when drew her even closer, and held her tight all the way home.

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