Over the weekend I went to two charity events for a family friend who died at 18 from a rare cancer. It's common to embellish the departed, but this kid was special.
He was handsome, tall, strong, fit. A full ride to a well-known university to play baseball. His place in the baseball community is part of why he was so popular, but what people talked about this weekend, as they did when he was alive, was his kindness.
He was kind to people who could help him and to everyone else, including our younger daughter, who is two grades behind him.
I can't tell if he was born with that worldview hard-wired in, or if he simply didn't carry the petty thoughts most of us have that make us difficult.
Which raises the question I've been sitting with: how do I be more like him?
Amazingly, the first thought that came to my mind is: what circumstances would I need? What kind of life would have to arrange itself around me for that to be my default?
He didn't have good circumstances. He was eighteen and in a tough spot.
And his kindness continued anyway.
So the circumstances were never the variable. The answer isn't rearranging life so that kindness can flow in. It flows out, and we control the tap.
I don't know if I'll get there. But he has shown me that the question has an answer.
