The Small Things

Never underestimate what a kind word can do for somebody.

As I explained about garbage, it's a chore.  Styrofoam with printing on it is burnable (I think).  Here, the good instant ramen comes in a Styrofoam bowl.

One day I woke up to realize that we hadn't bought bread.  No bread meant no sandwich for lunch.  I'm the odd man out at school because I don't eat school lunch.  Everyone thinks I'm crazy for just eating a sandwich every day; cup ramen would surely be even more shocking.  It was.

It was  a particularly difficult day.  None of the classes I had helped teach had went well.  I was ready to give up.  Thankfully it was lunch time.  I poured hot water over my instant noodles and waited for them to cook.  Staring at the bowl, it hit me; I can't throw that bowl away here!  I was going to have to wash the bowl and take it home.  I ate slowly, silently contemplating what to do.

There was no way out of it.  After I finished eating every last particle of noodle and vegetable, I slunk back to the sink.  While I washed my bowl, a teacher who looked to be in her forties came to the kitchenette.  In her broken English she asked how old I was.  In my even more broken Japanese, I replied.  She has a son my age.  He is away in college.  She is about my mother's age.  She gave me the milk from her lunch and said, "my son."  I took the milk, bowed and said, "my okaasan."

Work had been rotten.  Lunch had been embarrassing.  But the kind gesture of someone redeemed the day.  The warm kindness she showed me is much stronger in my memory than the day's failures.  Just when someone thinks "Who cares?" maybe you can be the voice who says, "I care."

Every day since then she gives me her milk, and every day I make it a point to stick my head into her office and say good morning.  I've never looked at a box of milk as a gesture of love before, but never underestimate the small things.