Going One Step Further

So I’m going to talk about my EM again because today I’m posting for the Kindness Project and because when you’re sick you’re exposed to some great acts of kindness.

I moved to Massachusetts in March and found an apartment in this great building with an amazing landlord. You know those images you get when I say landlord? Yeah, he’s the complete opposite. Friendly and giving and understanding. And I knew he was a good guy when we rented the place, I did.

But a couple months ago, after I’d filled him in on my condition—which included us forking over a lot of money to hijack the air conditioning system so we could run it super cold all year long—he put me in touch with a doctor for whom he’d built a house. My landlord explained my condition and then asked if this doctor could help me out at all.

Kindness bonus: The doctor chatted with me and gave me some leads to follow.

Then my landlord does something else: He asks for a written description of EM and my treatment so he can pass it on to other docs he’s built homes for. And it’s not that I think these people will somehow have a miracle cure for an untreatable, incurable disease … I’m realistic. But you never know.

It’s the thought. It’s that he’s going out of his way to help me. He could have heard about my EM, mumbled an “Oh that’s horrible. I’m sorry,” and been done with it. Collect rent. Stay quiet.

Instead, he’s taken time from his busy schedule to help me, on multiple occasions. That’s what the kindness project is: deliberate acts of kindness. Kindness is pausing to consider someone else even when you’re busy, even when your own world has gone mad.

Also posting for The Kindness Project today:

Be sure to check them out. We post the second Wednesday of every month. Want to join us? Grab our button and spread a little kindness.