Kindness is amazing

A gift of kindness or concern will make the recipient light up. I was recently the receipent of kindness. Wendy, (orangewillow on twitter) is the girlfriend of Josh Owens, host of the web 2.0 show (and a killer rails dude). Josh introduced me to Wendy, she's a full-time artist, selling her wares on Etsy.com. I recently moved and was joking how we were going to have some bare walls. Wendy sent me a painting and some illustrations! How awesome! The artwork is super cool and it was a total surprise. I am totally excited about it, Wendy rocks! I was a fan of her work before but now I'm her #1 fan.

Another example is about two weeks ago we were living in Birmingham Alabama in our old house. We needed a small piece of sliding because my dog has damaged a section of the current sliding. My wife noticed a construction company working on another house in the neighborhood. We didn't know where to purchase the sliding from, so she asked them. The owner of the company replied how big of a piece do you need? She said she didn't know. The owner, Richard, walked over to our house measured it and cut a piece to fit for free. His kindness hopefully will be repaid, we passed out 25 of his business cards to friends. We didn't ask for a free piece of sliding and he didn't ask for us to promote him.

You don't have to give monetary gifts, kindness can be words and or actions. I was in Wal-mart last night purchasing trash bags for the new house. The cashier looked tired and upset, her hand was wrapped and her finger was in a splint. I asked "What happened to your finger?" she instantly brightened up and told me. Her posture and facial expressions changed. As I left I said "I hope your finger gets better, take care of it." I meant it and I think she knew it. Kindness is amazing.