Stories of Kindness from Around the World

It was our turn to host the Christmas family dinner. It had been a few years since it had taken place at our house. Three deaths had occurred in the intervening years, family elders. And there was the considerable loss that went with that. One of them, the mother of my son-in-law, had died almost exactly a year earlier. She and her husband had hosted many family gatherings at their large home. The gatherings there would never be the same again without her. And so my wife and I both felt both the need and the strong wish to provide a warm setting for a healing gathering.

Some years earlier a secret Santa strategy had been settled upon to help reduce the financial burden of gift exchange. The names of all would be written on separate slips and then drawn by family members. You would give a gift to the person whose name you drew. That way everyone would both give and get a present, and we could all concentrate on the festivities of food and drink and just sharing the joy of being together. And besides, there were no rules about giving extra gifts if you felt like it. All the kids got multiple gifts since no one wanted to be left out as a Santa for them.

My wife and I worked hard to decorate the house and get it in good order, and we planned a fine meal. All was going beautifully. A small ritual for the children that my wife had created touched everyone. And then we got to the gift exchange. One by one, gifts were given and opened with holiday pleasure. The festive atmosphere was in full bloom. And then it began to wind down. My wife had gone to the kitchen to check on the food, when we heard one of the women exclaim, "But where’s my present?"

She was trying to keep up the semblance of being good-natured, but, at the same time, what had happened? Who was in charge of this? Who had forgotten? Who was the culprit? It was painful to be left out that way. The reactions were mixed and soon recriminations began to surface. "You were the one who was supposed to take care of that." This was met with a parry of trying to laugh it off. It wasn’t a big deal. "Oh, we left the gift in the garage."

At that point, I noticed the pained expression on this woman’s face. I should add, that the woman without a gift happened to be my ex-wife. The idea of the gift being left in the garage, far from being a comfort, only made the whole thing sound even worse. Looking at her, suddenly the impulse came to me to cross the room and give her a hug. But more than that, I thought everybody ought to give her a hug. And more than that, I realized all that was needed to make this happen was for me to stand up and suggest it in a clear voice, "Let’s all give Karen a hug!" And what was most surprising was that I was doing this at all. And with the joy of a newfound kind of giving. Because if the same situation had happened even one or two years earlier, without the influence of so many of you on this site, the thought would not have been able to enter my mind.

All of us came together. The hugs set free a lot of spontaneous love. "Group hug!" I said, with the intonation I’d absorbed from my many charityfocus exemplars. It was the most unexpected of moments and one of the very best. I saw my ex-wife wiping a tear from her eye.