You Never Know

You never know what effect your words or actions will have on another.

The nights now grow longer, the darkness comes earlier, and the stars come out and shine coldly down, harbingers of the winter to come. And yet the darkness, along with the cooler temperatures, pulls my mind back to my younger days when I looked forward to the shortening of the days for a reason that many youth do – for Christmas comes during the darkest time of the year.

Back in the early 1960s I lived in a small town and Christmas, as a season, began on December 1st and pretty much ended on the 26th. You didn’t hear Christmas music playing in stores, didn’t see any Christmassy advertisements on either TV or in the papers, and didn’t hear anything about Christmas on the radio ... until the magical 1st of December.

Then, for a little over three short weeks, everything changed. Twenty-four days weren’t enough to make one weary of the festival, were just enough to keep the tension – good tension – building until released on the 25th. Peace on Earth and Goodwill To Men. Today, Christmas season seems to start in October. It's not the same.

Anyway, in my town, in early December, the two big (relatively) department stores (Simpson Sears and Eatons) would set a part of their floor-space aside for a ‘toyland’. They would make separate rooms of it – not just have a certain few aisles devoted to ‘Christmas things’. So, one would walk through the enchanted door and the ‘real world’ would disappear and a magical one – to the eyes of a child – would appear.

There in that small enclave, the imagination would run riot, and children’s eyes would grow large with the thoughts that some of this breath-taking array might find its way into their homes … and then, oh what fun would be had!

Ah, but I bring this up not to speak of Christmas, nor of the imagination (something without which we writers and readers would know a drearier world). No, I bring it up because of the man I saw in the ‘Toyland’ one day when I had come to feast my eyes on what might be.

With hindsight, he looked to be in his mid-twenties to early thirties. At the time, I only thought of him as ‘a grown-up’. And he had such a look of joy on his face as he looked around. And he smiled at me in passing. No more. Just a smile of recognition of a like soul in a magical place, perhaps. Or, perhaps, he thought of his own children when he saw me. I don’t know. I didn’t know him and never – to my knowledge – saw him again.

However, I remember his smile. And that smile, the look of quiet joy, has affected my life ever since. Perhaps more than anything else, it said, ‘This state of joy can exist’. This man – if he still lives – may be as old as 90, though I suspect something less. He will never know what he did for me in those few seconds, and how it lasted for 50 years.

Just a smile.

While working on the Distant Early Warning Line in the Arctic, I dove into the site’s ‘library’ during my off-time. We had collected lots of books – from various genres – that the Company had sent up on regular basis over the previous decades. Being a somewhat voracious reader – and having little else to occupy my off-time – I quickly went through those books of my own preferred genres (SF and History) and went on to other books including Mystery, Horror (not many), Westerns, and even Romance.

One day I sat in the ‘library’ reading a – to me – inconsequential book that had not much to offer other than a way to pass some time. I didn’t think overly much of the writing, the story, or anything else about the book. Within a week, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you the name of the book or the author. However – and this is a big ‘however’ – one sentence in that book was just the sentence I needed to read at the time. It spoke to me in a way that it probably wouldn’t today, thirty years later. That author, whoever he or she is, presented me with a gift that s/he will never know was given. I no longer know the sentence, nor do I remember what it was about or why it had such an effect on me. But it did, and I am grateful to the author for writing it. It helped.

Just a simple sentence.

About fifteen years ago, my mother died, leaving me as executor of her will. One of my jobs as executor entailed the closing of her account at the local Credit Union. I presented my documents and one of the staff aided me in filling out the paperwork and tidying up my mother’s affairs at that institution. She (the staff member) treated me kindly and gently, helping to make it a painless, quiet closing of this aspect of my mother’s life. I appreciated it in a way that she probably didn’t realize.

Subsequently, whenever I went into that branch of the Credit Union to transact my own business, I would look around to see if she was there – and she often was – and I’d think of the kindness she had showed me and silently thank her. 

Just a simple kindness that cost her nothing. But I remembered, and she would never know this … no, wait, that’s not true.

About 10 years after my mother’s death, that woman was my teller once again. And I decided to act on the idea that had begun building in me over the previous six or so months: I should tell her.

Thus, after transacting my business, I explained how her kindness of that time had remained with me, how I remembered it – and her – over the last ten years. She looked at me and said, “You have no idea how much I needed to hear that today.”

Just a simple act of kindness that cost me nothing.

She retired shortly after that, and I’ve not seen her again. But at least I’ve consciously returned something for the smiles, for the words that others have written, for the acts which, unknown to their authors, have made a difference in my own life.

And I know it continues, for some few have informed me that things I’ve said or done in the past – mostly not even remembered by me – or words I’ve written have likewise affected them. A casual word, a smile, a small kindness, holding the door open for someone laden with parcels can mean (to that person at that time) much more than just a smile, a casual word, or a small kindness would normally do.

We don’t know the lives of others; we don’t know what may help them in a bad time; we often don't even know they are having a bad time. A small act of kindness, a simple smile of recognition of just another person sharing this world may help that person on their path. Who knows, it may literally save a life. And we’ll likely never know.