- Massaging mom's feet
- Scrubbing the toilet
- Washing the kitchen floor
- Cleaning your room
- Mowing the grass
My parents have always been excellent role models where good deeds are concerned. Whether building a wheelchair ramp for a neighbor or working on a friend's boat, my dad's handyman skills have been put to good deed use on many, many occasions. Just a couple weeks ago he and my mom were classic examples of the kindness of strangers when a duffel bag fell out of the back of a pickup truck they were following. My dad stopped to pick it up and tried, unsuccessfully, to catch up to the vehicle. Luckily, inside the bag they found a phone number and reached the owners who had just arrived at the airport, missing their bag which happened to hold their identification. Though they had to cancel and reschedule their flight, my parents had saved the day by returning the lost bag to them.
One of my fondest childhood memories involved another good deed of my father's. Driving home from the shore, my dad saw a turtle in the middle of the road. Not only did he go around the turtle to avoid hitting it, but he pulled off to the side of the road, walked back to that turtle, and moved him out of the way where he wouldn't get hurt. Of course, it's distinctly possible that it had taken that turtle 15 hours to get that far across the road and my dad had just put him back at square one, but he meant well.
For someone with a notoriously bad memory, I find it noteworthy that good deeds tend to stay with me. I even recall an ex-boyfriend, who was really a bit of a goofball, helping an elderly woman pump her gas at a self-service station when the employees did nothing to help her despite her request for assistance.
There are many who bemoan the state of our society and question our values, morals, and ethics, but unless I'm living in a state of denial, I believe that people are inherently good. For further inspiration, check out these web sites I found when I searched Google for "good deeds":
Have any good deed stories you'd like to share? Leave a comment!
1 comment:
Good deeds are self-rewarding. One of our Master instructors who runs a school in Bethlehem once said at a clinic, "have you ever done something nice for someone and not felt good afterwards?" I always thought that was a beautiful sentiment.
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