Everyday Kindness

You may recognize the title of this post as the theme emphasized many times by our dear friend, Dianne, from Forks Off the Moment. As I started to write today, I found it hard to come up with a title. But my subject is so basic - I believe it comes down to this. Respect for one another leads to kindness toward everyone we encounter, whatever the circumstances, family, friend, or stranger.

And this leads me to another dear friend, Casdok, from Mother of Shrek. Yesterday I read her post concerning abuse. I urge you to follow the link to her blog. Casdok is an amazing woman, living in the UK, mother of an autistic child who is now an adult. The difficulties she has faced in her life have made her a strong, sensitive woman, determined to help her own son, and along the way, to help others whenever she can. In this post, she presents far better than I, the case against cruelty against the disabled adult, the elderly, and the man or woman in an abusive relationship. As she points out, there is legislation designed to protect the young, and so many others in our society, but very little specifically designed for adults. Casdok lives in Britain. The same situations exists here in the US. We read or hear of individual cases that happen to make headlines, and we shake our heads and tell one another how awful it is. What we need to do is to open our eyes to what is going on every day in our own little corner of the world. Sadly, it is all around us - not just in nursing homes or other facilities, but in our own neighborhoods. It's next door, or across the street.

As a child, I witnessed and experienced abuse of one kind and another. I put it out of my mind for many years. I think too many of us choose to ignore what we see and tell ourselves we must be mistaken - it couldn't really be happening.


On my side bar you will see a telephone number. Please don't hesitate to use it if it is appropriate for yourself, or if everyday kindness suggests that you might use it to help someone else. - 1-800-799-SAFE - the National Domestic Violence Hotline.