Last week I watched my neighbor’s house burn down.
It was before 5 a.m., and my husband woke me up with a start by the sharp tone of voice he used to call out my name.
I jumped out of bed immediately and ran over to the window of our bedroom where my husband was standing and looking out to the street.
To my shock, I saw red and blue swirling lights going by our house by the dozens. Police cars, fire trucks and ambulances were speeding up our street and parking on our lawn. Volunteer fire fighters were jumping out of their personal vehicles parked haphazardly on the street, dressing in their gear as they ran up the street to the fire.
One firefighter parked his vehicle in our driveway, and didn’t even slow down enough to shut off the engine or close the door to his truck. He just slipped out of his flip flops and dressed for the fire right then and there.
I have to say, it was both overwhelming and awe-inspiring to watch these tragic events unfold.
My husband and I watched as neighbors who lived on either side of the fire run out of their homes with their pets and children with worry that the fire might spread to their homes as well.
While other neighbors whose homes were in safe distance from the fire began to bring out bottles of water to the families and emergency personal as they worked over a period of hours to stop the spread of the fire.
Meanwhile, my husband and I fearfully reminded each other how extremely dry this summer has been in our neck of the woods, leaving the grass, bushes and trees partially dead and very susceptible to fire.
I found myself just repeating over and over, “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.” It was like I just could not find any other words at that moment. No other words would fit.
My plea to god only began to slow down when we learned from a police officer who was standing post at the edge our yard that the entire family and their 2 dogs had made it out of the house safely.
Now fast forward to last night.
My family and I were taking an after dinner walk around the neighborhood together, and we ran into a member of the family who had lost her home in the fire.
The woman was taking her two dogs for a walk, an activity she’s done hundreds of times, but last night she looked and sounded different; the kind of different that only a before-and-after-type of traumatic experience can do to a person.
We stopped and spoke briefly to her while my 2 year-old daughter pet her little black dogs.
She told us how the fire had taken all of their belongings. She told us that the renter’s insurance would not cover the cost of housing while they looked for a new home.
We told her to please let us know if there is anything we can do- though our words felt small and not enough.
But then, she surprised us.
This woman, who had rescued her 2 daughters and 2 dogs from a burning fire while her husband was finishing his 3rd shift job and it was still dark outside, said she was “overwhelmed by the kindness” showed by our neighbors and her church.
She said that for the month of August she and her family would be staying for one week intervals at the homes of people in the community who were away for summer vacation. Folks who already had plans to be out of town for the week offered their home to the family who’s house had just burned down, thereby covering the cost of housing at least until the time school starts again.
As the woman told the story, her usual confident and efficient face looked incredibly soft and vulnerable. She was visibly moved by the expression of care and concern from others. I was moved as well.
When I got home from the walk that night, I thought of the American poet Naomi Shihab Nye who wrote the poem “Kindness.”
In an interview with NPR, Ms. Nye shared that the poem was written in a moment in time when she had herself been made vulnerable involuntarily.
At the time the poem was written the poet said she and her husband were traveling in South America, and they had found themselves robbed of all their belongings including their money and passports.
Ms. Nye said the poem came to her after she was approached by a local man while sitting alone and vulnerable on the side of the road without her most important possessions.
Her poem, “Kindness,” goes like this:
Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.”
What’s also interesting about the poet’s story, is that in this case, the local man did not offer any tangible goods to the poet. And he did not offer money or a ride to the embassy to get a temporary passport. No, what the man offered was hisempathy and kindness.
As the poet told it, the man, the stranger, simply said in Spanish, “What happened to you?” And then he listened, and looked visibly sad as the poet shared her traumatic experience of being robbed and in fact witnessing a murder as well of another passenger who had been riding the bus with them.
When Ms. Nye finished her awful story, she says the man just sincerely said, “I’m very sorry. I’m very, very sorry that happened,” and then continued on his way.
I like this poem, and I like the story of the origin of this poem.
It reminded me that there is value to kindness that goes far beyond the concreteness of goods and services (though these things are extremelyimportant too). Listening to my neighbor tell the story of watching her house burn down, and then scrambling to get basic needs met for her and her family, while simultaneously experiencing an out-pouring of generosity, was both terrifying and uplifting all at once.
Perhaps that is the grace of kindness.
Like her shadow counterpart, grief, kindness seems to show up at the most paradoxical and bewildering times, leaving us to only humbly marvel at the mystery of reality and the hopeful possibilities for our own human evolution.
May you be graced with kindness today.
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