Random Acts of Kindness

A couple of weeks ago, my wife and I went to Target to get something. I stayed in the car because of my recent back surgery. While waiting, I listened to the radio. When Kathy came back, she tried to start the car, but all she got was the irritating and frightening clicking noise the starter solenoid makes when the battery is almost dead.

 I couldn’t really get out of the car because I was only 3 weeks out from the surgery and my movements were very restricted. Even riding in the car was a stretch of the rules the doctor gave me, but I was very tired of just hanging around the house, so I went.

 Well, there we were, stranded and pretty much helpless. A van pulled into the parking space opposite us, so we asked them if they happened to have a set of jumper cables in their car. They did, but the real nice part of this little story came when the driver’s wife told us that she had heard our solenoid chattering and told her husband to pull in to the opposite parking space so they could give us a jump and get our car going. Her motivation was just simple kindness. She just wanted to help. It was truly a “random act of kindness.” She was sensitive to the needs of another.

 The jump was successful. We were on our way in minutes thanks to her thoughtfulness. They never offered their names, and we didn’t ask.

 The next day, both the battery and the alternator had to be replaced.

 President Kimball’s classic and inspiring story about the woman at the airport has been told and retold. It’s the perfect example of a random act of kindness. This version has been taken from the January 2007 Ensign Article titled: Spencer W. Kimball: Man of Action, by Garrett H. Garff. See also Teachings of Presidents of the Church, pp79–80.

Stranded in an airport because of bad weather, a young mother and her two-year-old daughter had been waiting in long lines for hours trying to get a flight home. The child was tired and fussy, but the mother, who was pregnant and at risk of miscarriage, did not pick her up. A doctor had advised the mother to avoid lifting the two-year-old unless absolutely necessary. The woman overheard disapproving comments from people around her as she used her foot to slide her crying daughter along in the line. Nobody offered to help. But then, the woman later recalled, “someone came towards us and with a kindly smile said, ‘Is there something I could do to help you?’ With a grateful sigh I accepted his offer. He lifted my sobbing little daughter from the cold floor and lovingly held her to him while he patted her gently on the back. He asked if she could chew a piece of gum. When she was settled down, he carried her with him and said something kindly to the others in the line ahead of me, about how I needed their help. They seemed to agree and then he went up to the ticket counter [at the front of the line] and made arrangements with the clerk for me to be put on a flight leaving shortly. He walked with us to a bench, where we chatted a moment, until he was assured that I would be fine. He went on his way. About a week later I saw a picture of Apostle Spencer W. Kimball and recognized him as the stranger in the airport.”

President Kimball never introduced himself. He wanted nothing, not even recognition, for the service he rendered. He just wanted to help. Were it not for the exhausted woman he helped, the story would have never been told, and perhaps the sequel below would not have been written.

 Several years later, President Kimball received a letter (as chronicled in an article by President Gordon B. Hinckley, “Do Ye Even So to Them,” Ensign, Dec. 1991), that read, in part:

“Dear President Kimball:

“I am a student at Brigham Young University. I have just returned from my mission in Munich, West Germany. I had a lovely mission and learned much.

“I was sitting in priesthood meeting last week, when a story was told of a loving service which you performed some twenty-one years ago in the Chicago airport. The story told of how you met a young pregnant mother with a … screaming child, in … distress, waiting in a long line for her tickets. She was threatening miscarriage and therefore couldn’t lift her child to comfort her. She had experienced four previous miscarriages, which gave added reason for the doctor’s orders not to bend or lift.

“You comforted the crying child and explained the dilemma to the other passengers in line. This act of love took the strain and tension off my mother. I was born a few months later in Flint, Michigan.

“I just want to thank you for your love. Thank you for your example!”

Why are some people kind, and others not? Why do tempers flare at times? Why can some people see a need and respond when others do not – either because of choice or preoccupation or self-centeredness or lack of caring? Perhaps the definition below from Wikipedia offers a clue to why people behave as they do.

A random act of kindness is a selfless act performed by a person or people wishing either to assist or to cheer up an individual person or people. The phrase may have been coined by Anne Herbert, who says that she wrote "Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty" on a place mat at a Sausalito restaurant in 1982 or 1983. (bold italics added)

People who go outside themselves, who are “selfless,” are usually excited by an opportunity to serve others. Whether small, like the jumper cables, or larger, as President Kimball’s example was, they perform anonymous acts of kindness just for the joy it brings to others, and secondarily, to themselves.

 Perhaps those who are “selfish,” centered on themselves and what is important only to them, have a harder time recognizing opportunities to assist others. Many people stood in line with the mother in President Kimball’s story, yet none offered assistance but him.

 Certainly there are myriad reasons why people focus inwardly or outwardly at any given time. I am not a psychologist or social worker. People study for years and many texts have been written about motivation to behave in a certain way. In the April 1999 General Conference, in his talk entitled Thanks to the Lord for His Blessings, President Gordon B. Hinckley said this:

Now, brethren and sisters, let us return to our homes with resolution in our hearts to do a little better than we have done in the past. We can all be a little kinder, a little more generous, a little more thoughtful of one another. We can be a little more tolerant and friendly to those not of our faith, going out of our way to show our respect for them. We cannot afford to be arrogant or self-righteous. It is our obligation to reach out in helpfulness, not only to our own but to all others as well.

Regardless of childhood trauma, regardless of insults or injuries inflicted on us by others, regardless of road rage or unreasonable anger, we can do as President Hinckley suggests. We can take small steps. We can be more thoughtful, more generous, more tolerant, more respectful, more helpful. We can avoid self-righteousness and arrogance. Marjorie Pay Hinckley, President Hinckley’s celestial wife, often said:

Be kind. Everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.

In 1985, when I had retired from the Air Force and was working at Wang Laboratories in Chesapeake, VA, I foolishly ran out of gas about 5 miles from work. I locked my car and started the longish walk to the next exit. I had not gone far when a car pulled over, and the wonderful lady in the car asked me if I needed help. I gratefully accepted her invitation, and she took me to the next exit gas station where I bought a gas can and filled it with gas. She took me back to my car, a considerable distance, because we had to go to the previous exit and come back. She said to me during the course of our conversation: “When I saw you walking, I said to myself, surely this man will not hurt me.” So she stopped. Although I try to avoid mentioning skin color or ethnic background in my letters, in a state where there was still much prejudice, it is significant that she was an African-American woman. This is a lifetime memory for me – she never told me her name, and I never saw her again. A true random act of kindness.