The good that you do

This story is worth repeating. It's about a young boy who went about on Saturday mornings with his basket of vegetables, from door to door offering for sale a variety of items to people at home or on the streets of Roseau. Many girls and boys do that as well virtually every Saturday.

This, I am sure, is done to help them meet, to a large extent, their various expenses including their school needs.

In the course of this venture the boy knocked at the door of a lady and asked for some water, please. The lady looked at him carefully and said: "I think a glass of milk would do you much better, do you mind?"

"Yes, please", said the boy.

The glass of milk was given to the boy, who drank it and afterwards thanked the lady for her kindness and asked her for her name. The lady responded.

The boy moved on.

Years later, this boy who did well at school and after graduating went to university and then became a medical doctor. One day during the course of his practice in hospital, he noticed a lady being pushed to the operating room. By mere coincidence he inquired who the lady was and where she came from. He received the answers to his questions and that rang a bell, as the saying goes.

Without saying what this lady had done for him, the doctor agreed to accept full responsibility for all her medical bills.

Every time I see those boys and girls on the streets on Saturdays with their baskets of vegetables, this story comes to mind and I always remember a valuable quotation by Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) on kindness.

It states:

"… as the sun lightens the world

so let our loving kindness make bright this house of our habitation".