doing this, Mom?” he asked.
“Because you made them feel something,” I said. “You reminded them that kindness matters.”
He thought about that for a while. Then he said, “Can we share the umbrellas?”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s too many for us. Can we give some to people who don’t have one?”
I hugged him. “That’s a wonderful idea.”
We kept one umbrella—the red one, the one he’d given away, which Maria had returned with a thank-you note. The other forty-six we donated to a local shelter.
And the
gifts? We kept some. We shared others. We used the coins to buy groceries for a family in need. We planted the succulent in our garden. We gave the baby blanket to a new mother down the street.
Kindness, it turns out, is contagious.
What I Learned
Here’s what I want you to take away from this story.
One small act of kindness can ripple farther than you’ll ever know.
Leo didn’t give away his umbrella because he wanted recognition. He didn’t do it because he expected anything in return.
