Week 18 and 19 - More acts of random kindness

I'm sitting by the window, it's a pleasant enough day and I can hear the calming sound of the water fountain and see the bees buzzing intentionally on the flowers just outside.
Sound idyllic? It's not what it seems.
The views and sounds inside the room portray a very different picture. There's a man opposite who is making a painful, unsettling rattling noise, his wife is periodically stroking his hand and showing him compassion. Another lady is talking about her husband having gone downhill and life being like a roller-coaster. In fact, so fast-moving is this ride, that after a break in writing the first man has now gone; moved to his own room. The third lady embraces her husband and gets cheek to cheek; I don't know if he can hear her. As for my father in law, I hold his hand, there are no sounds from him, he is asleep and for a few moments at least he seems to have found some comfort from his long journey towards death.
I am in the hospice. I feel very emotional today and I am overwhelmed by the sadness in the room and the kindness that these women and my mother in law show to their husbands who are unable to give anything back in return.
Kindness is so precious a gift, don't you think? To give something of yourself simply to give joy or comfort to another sounds quite easy and doesn't cost a lot. In the hospice it's so utterly compelling because you know there's not a single selfish motive.
I wanted to have a few acts of random kindness on my list this year because I believe kindness can be practised, this sort of kindness which is spontaneous, generous and selfless. We don't know what sadnesses may lurk behind someone's cool façade, we don't know how many opportunities we'll have to do something for any given person. So I'm recommending we show kindness whenever we can not just when it's obviously needed.
What I did is really not the point of this blog, but for the sake of ideas and sharing inspiration I'll tell you that one was sending flowers to a person chosen randomly from my contacts list and the other was making cakes for my elderly neighbour.
I'm glad I did them both and the supermarket one. I'm going to keep practising kindness, because you just never know........

.....(I didn't say earlier but I finished this blog the day after the hospice visit. All three of my father in law's fellow journeyers died last night.)