Monday, 13 January 2025

Reminders of Kindness

Last week, I had one of those days that started off pretty poorly; oversleeping, forgetting stuff at home, forgetting breakfast, all the stuff that can put someone in a bad mood in the morning. I was dropped to a poor enough state that I had already written the day off and it wasn’t even 9AM. 

At some point, I left my desk for about 30min for a meeting. When I got back, there was a letter on it. “Weird, I don’t get letters often”, I thought. But hey, my name was on it, and there it was. 

It was a birthday card, from one of the people I attended training in Ottawa with nearly 10 months ago (the postage strike can be blamed for getting it a month late). I have rarely spoken to this person since training (despite getting along with them really well), nor do I recall ever telling them when my birthday was. But they sent me a card, along with a postcard from the Yukon (where they are from), and photos we had taken while in Ottawa. 

They could have just sent me a text or an email saying happy birthday and that would have been enough to make me smile. But they went a step (or two) above. The impact of receiving that letter was enough to turn my day around on the spot. 

It was a really good reminder to me how impactful acts of kindness can have on a person. I recount my AoK at the end of my day, before bed. Lately, I have started to lose sight of the purpose of the AoK and it became something I was just moving through the motions of. I am glad this letter came a month late; it came exactly when I needed it.  

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