Kindness Comes In All Packages

by Jaime Mowers (Just Jaime)

email: jmowers@timesnewspapers.com.

I especially love this month’s stories of kindness, and I hope you enjoy them, too. Special thanks to these readers who called to share their stories with me. One of my favorite quotes is: “Unexpected kindness is the most powerful, least costly, and most underrated agent of human change,” (Bob Kerrey) and I think these stories are a perfect example of that.

I was at Aldi in Crestwood a while back and had just finished my shopping when two young girls came up and said, “We bought these for you,” and handed me a bouquet of red roses! I said, “For me?!” They said, “Yes,” and then scampered away as I stood there, dumbfounded.

I went to my car and looked around for them because I wanted to tell them how much they made my day. I was suppose to have been on vacation, but my health care provider didn’t think it was a good idea for me to travel due to COVID and I had very reluctantly canceled my trip.

I should have been on my trip, but since I wasn’t, that was why I was at the grocery store ... I had no food and I needed milk, etc.

I don’t know if I looked extra forlorn as I picked up my groceries and that’s why the girls got me the roses, but it was at a time when I really needed a boost. It also just so happens that red roses are my favorite flower! I don’t know who these teenage girls were, but I’m a senior citizen and it made a big difference in my day and my week. It really took me by surprise, too.

I had a friend coming to dinner the next night, so I had the roses for the table, which was perfect! My friend also surprised me with such kindness — she went to the trouble of bringing certain elements I would have encountered on my vacation to my home! She even brought small bottles of soaps and lotions like you would get at a hotel. I can’t believe the trouble my friend went to for me, but the roses from the teenagers ... I really can’t get over that. Things like that really make someone’s day, and it really does make a difference.

—A Grateful Webster Groves Resident

I’m 90 years old, and when I read your latest column, it took me back 50 years to a stranger’s act of kindness. I was on Highway

40, except this was before it was really even an interstate. We had an old station wagon, and I had my two young kids with me in the car. It was pouring down rain — just buckets of rain — and I had a flat.

I pulled over and put my flashers on. A car pulled up behind me and a gentleman came up to my window and asked if he could change the tire for me. He was driving a big, beautiful car and he was dressed in a suit and top hat — so there he was in a suit and top hat looking like a million bucks, standing out in the pouring rain and changing the tire for me! I couldn’t believe it! It just goes to show you that kindness comes in all packages.

Afterward, he just went on his way, but I thought surely he’s headed to an office somewhere for something important and I’m sure he had to go back home and change clothes. I didn’t get his name, but I have never forgotten him.

—Joann Rogers, Lemay

Do you have a story of kindness? Drop me a line at jmowers@timesnewspapers. com or give me a buzz at 314-968-2699.