Do, Don't Say

The children were young and yet old enough to have after school activities – so many after school practices and lessons. Every afternoon we drove through the little villages lightly sprinkled around out metro area. Church Street was a frequent pass-through route. One afternoon, we saw a maid, just off work, running to make her bus stop in time for her long ride home. Public transportation is sketchy in our town, mainly providing rides for domestic workers from their homes in the west and north to the mansions in the east and south where they worked. If Ms. Running Maid did not make this bus, she’d have to wait up to an hour for the next one. I got a little bit ahead, pulled over, let down my window, and called, “May I give you a ride to the bus stop.” “Oh, yes,” she smiled. “And thank you ma’am.” The lift took maybe a minute and I was so glad to help save this lady so much time. We made it, she got out and climbed onto the bus.

Once we were back on our way to the next activity, I spoke quietly to the children whose ages were still in single digits. “Aren’t we so happy to have helped her get on her way home? I do want you to know that this is something we will only talk about among ourselves. When we do a service for someone, it’s a secret. If we told people about it, the story gets to be what a good thing we did and somehow that takes away from the gift we gave another person. Like handling silver makes it tarnish, handling a stories of helpful generosity tarnishes them. So, shhh.” They smiled. So did I.

— Marmar