Stories of Kindness from Around the World

When I was a little girl, my mother, father, brother and I lived in a small two-bedroom rowhouse. My parents often fought, particularly at night when my brother and I had gone to bed. I thought it was something everybody's parents did. I found it interesting, that moment when I first realized that other families lived differently.

I can remember knowing that, based on American standards, what we had at the time was small.  That never bothered me, not then, and not now.



One of my most precious memories happened at nighttime. We piled into the car to go look at the lights in the neighborhood and then came home. At the top of our steps, there was a little table and on top of the table was a small Nativity scene. The barn/stable was in the shape of a triangle, which had glitter pasted on the sides, and it had a tiny, tiny Mary and Joseph looking into the manger with Jesus in it. At night I would go and sit before it. I would plug it in and the one little lightbulb lit it up. It looked magnificent to me.

Somehow I could feel a warmth there. I could feel what it was like to be doing the best you can with what you've got, I could feel the perseverance of my parents trying to do the best they could for each other and for their little ones and I could feel how special what they shared was- that no matter how small our accommodations or lack of material things, none of that mattered. What mattered is that we were all there, together in that moment, for each other. That created a warmth and a priceless contentment of which I think even the Angels would approve.