11 Quiet Family Moments Where Compassion Brought Warmth Back to Cold Hearts

When my father was passing in hospice, my mother and I obviously didn’t want to leave his room. A volunteer came by and asked us if there was anything we needed, and I kind of laughed and said. “Got any AA batteries?” not expecting anything. About half an hour later, she came back with a brand new pack she had gone out and bought for me and refused reimbursement. I just started crying because that one small thing meant so much to me since my whole world had narrowed down to his room, listening to each breath and wondering if it would be his last.

I secretly covered the plane ticket cost for a close friend who just lost his father this morning so that he can fly home to give his final goodbyes. It felt good tonight to secretly give the cost of the plane ticket to his GF, so that he could fly from FL to NJ and attend his father’s memorial, which he wouldn’t be able to attend otherwise due to current financial issues related to employment hours. The backstory is that last year I also lost my father and stepfather in the span of 4 months last year due to their medical issues, and I was near homeless and out of work, but I managed to get my life together over the past year and now have a decent-paying job that allowed me to have some extra money to give back into the universe. I freshly know the pain he’s going through with losing the sad part. He lost his mother probably 10-12 years ago in a car accident, and my friend only recently turned 31 or 32. Remember in life it’s not what you have when you part this earth, it’s what you have changed for the better in the world that makes a difference.

I really hope this actually gets buried, but I had a very bad childhood, and once when I was a teenager and my next oldest brother had been kicked out of the house (our mother kicked us all out one at a time), he was at his job at a gas station and ordered me a pizza and then had them stop at the gas station where he worked and pick up a Pepsi to deliver to me. At times in our lives, we’ve been like oil and water, but at times when it really truly mattered, he totally came through. That’s just one example, but it still makes me tear up when I think about his homeless-sleeping-in-a-car self doing something so selfless for me to make sure I was taken care of.

When I turned 18, my parents made me take on financial responsibilities such as paying my share of the bills (cell phone, car insurance, etc.) and paying rent to them for living in their home when I wasn’t living in my college dorm. I honestly felt annoyed by it at the time because why would my parents want me to struggle financially even more than I already was being a poor college student?! Once I graduated undergrad and med school, they took me out to dinner and presented me with a substantial-sized check. I asked them what this was for and told them it was much too generous! My dad, beaming with pride, said how proud they were of me for graduating at the top of my class and how I took on the financial responsibilities they asked of me even though I didn’t make much money at the time. This check was all the money I had paid to them over the past 8 years plus an equal match from them! They said they always intended to save this money and return it to me to help me as I prepared for my anesthesiology residency. I have always been close with my parents, and even though I was annoyed about paying, I never let it be known to them or anyone. To this day, I still can’t believe they did this for me, in addition to paying for my undergraduate and medical degrees. This was a very unexpected act of kindness, and I appreciated it so much!

For six months, the guy living above my apartment would aggressively pace around his bedroom at 4:00 AM every single morning, waking up my infant daughter. I was so sleep-deprived that I was losing my mind. I left an incredibly messy note on his door, calling him a reckless, selfish neighbor and threatening to report him to management. The pacing stopped immediately. Two days later, I ran into him by the mailboxes. He looked exhausted, with dark circles under his eyes, and he wouldn’t even look me in the face. He quietly mentioned that he had taken a grueling night shift at a local factory six months ago to pay off a sudden family expense, and 4:00 AM was the exact hour he got home and had to walk the floors to unbuckle his heavy, rigid safety gear. He apologized for being a nuisance and held the lobby door open for my stroller.

I’d like to share my Dad; he legit goes out and takes pictures of flowers and sends them to his lift of people that he likes to make smile. He sends daily flower pics to at least half a dozen people that I know of, including my wife. Not just random pics; he actively seeks out aesthetically pleasing flowers and takes the pics himself, from his flower bed/walks with the dogs/offices with potted flowers/he even sent one from a Walmart flower for sale. This has been happening for maybe a year or more, and I think it’s awesome. He’s shy about attention, so he doesn’t often mention it but puts real effort into making folks’ day just a bit brighter, and this is another reason I admire him.

I am a nervous flyer. I know it, I own it, I take the window seat so I can watch the wing and convince myself everything is fine. On a flight back from visiting my mom last year, we hit turbulence about an hour in, the kind that drops the plane and doesn’t immediately correct. I grabbed the hand of the man sitting next to me without thinking. He pulled away hard and told me loudly to stop, that I was overreacting, that I needed to calm down and keep my hands to myself. The whole row heard it. I turned toward the window and cried quietly for the rest of the flight. When we landed and the seat belt sign went off he stood up, reached into his bag, and turned back to me. He said, “I was scared too. That doesn’t make what I did okay. I’m sorry. If you’ll let me, I’d like to buy you a coffee.” I said yes because I wanted the coffee. That was twelve months ago. We got married last Saturday.

I brought my dog to the office on a Thursday because he was running a fever and I couldn’t find anyone to stay with him. I set up his bed under my desk and thought I’d gotten away with it until my coworker two seats over stood up and said loudly that this was completely inappropriate, that she had been told she couldn’t bring her baby when he was sick and she had to take personal days, and that a dog was not an exception just because it was an animal. She said it in front of the whole floor. I wanted to disappear. I apologized and started looking up emergency pet sitters on my phone. About ten minutes later she appeared at my desk, put a small bowl of water next to his bed, and crouched down to look at him for a moment. Then she stood up and said: “I’m sorry for how I said that. It was the wrong way to make a fair point.” She went back to her seat. At lunch she came over again, quieter, and asked what the vet had said. We talked for twenty minutes.

My landlady suddenly doubled my rent. I pleaded, “I’m a single mom of 2.” She rolled her eyes, “People like you breed and become entitled.” I had to leave and sleep outside. Later, she came to me at night. I felt dizzy when she said, “Come inside, please, before your kids get sick out here.” I followed her, too tired to argue, and she led us to a basement unit I never knew existed, already set up with beds and a heater running. She wouldn’t look at me while she talked. Said she had a daughter once who she’d pushed away for years over money, always keeping score instead of just helping. Said watching me walk out with two kids was the first time she’d heard her own voice out loud and recognized why her daughter stopped calling. I’ve lived in that basement rent-free for two years now. She still says the wrong thing sometimes; old habits pass slowly, but she shows up every evening to sit with my kids while I work, and she never stops trying.

When I was young, my Dad would help our neighbors by shoveling their driveways, mowing lawns, fixing stuff, etc. As the youngest of 5, I craved any one-on-one time I could get. I started going with him and learned his “See a need, fill a need” philosophy. We’ve had a string of bad winter weather here, and today I finally managed to get my super long driveway completely clear. I originally offered my neighbor my scraper as we have 3 inches of ice under the snow. Eventually I noticed it was going to take him a super long time, so I channeled my Inner Dad and helped him out. Now I’m icing my shoulders and have taken some ibuprofen. I called my almost 85-year-old Dad to tell him about it when I came home. I love that I have that legacy from my Dad!