In December, I shared a story of a young couple who surprised my wife and me by raking up several dozen bags of leaves from our yard when we were away. Their unexpected act of kindness touched us.
Readers responded with their own stories of kindness. Here are some of them.
A reader from Santa Rosa, California, recounted the time he and his wife were driving home and saw a young woman and baby on the shoulder of the freeway near her broken down car. They stopped and used their car service membership to call a tow truck and had it take the woman, baby and broken car to her home across town.
Another reader from Sebastopol, California, and her siblings spread kindness to honor their father. His 90th birthday “seemed like a big deal” so the siblings asked friends and family to do random acts of kindness for others in honor of their dad, and then write a brief note about their act. The siblings compiled more than 90 notes of kindness in a notebook and presented them to their father. “He was touched, but I think a little embarrassed that people, many of whom he didn't even know, had gone out of their way on his behalf.”
In 1960, a reader from North Carolina, was a college student in love. One night, the woman he had hoped to marry after graduating responded “no” when he asked over the phone if she loved him. The reader told his roommate he planned to hitchhike 200 miles to his girlfriend’s university to talk to her. His car-owning roommate responded, “let’s go,” and drove him there. He waited in his car while they broke up, and then drove them back to their own campus. The romance fizzled, but the kindness between roommates thrived.
Finally, a story arrived from a reader from Pennsylvania. Her son-in-law and his father had taken her grandson to a college basketball game. The following day the grandson was to take part in a children’s basketball clinic. During the game, the son-in-law heard a dad tell his son they couldn’t afford a clinic ticket. He spoke to the dad and bought a ticket for his son.
A day after they returned home, the son-in-law’s mother was Christmas shopping. She noticed the checkout clerk seemed stressed. When she told the clerk how great a job she was doing, the clerk teared up and said, “You have no idea how much I needed to hear that.” The woman left, headed to the bank, withdrew $100, returned to the store, and handed the money to the clerk who was gathering her things to leave. “Now I can buy groceries,” the clerk said as she hugged her. The woman called her son’s wife to let her know what happened and to tell her that her son had inspired her. Her son had never told his wife what he had done. His mother only knew because her husband overheard their son at the game.
“To me, this is the best,” the reader from Pennsylvania wrote, “when you share that kindness quietly, without recognition – just purely to be kind.”
Whether it’s quiet kindness or a louder variation, offering when possible to help others who might be in need remains the right thing to do. Continue to share your stories of kindness offered and I will continue to try to share them.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com.
Follow him on Twitter @jseglin.
(c) 2025 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.
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