Today is a beautiful, sunny, breezy day.  My sweet daughter had her port removed (hopefully forever).  Her loving father took this beautiful photo of her post surgery.  The pediatric surgeon put this heart shaped bandage over the spot where the surgery took place.  A heart just above hers.  A heart to symbolize the pain endured, the lessons learned, the strength we’ve shared and the kindness we’ve received.  The Kindness poem I wrote in an earlier post resonated with this image to me.

Kindness propels itself through
a world of fear and greed and hatred
Its impression leaving some respite in
the dis-eased, mal-contented and mis-understood
Keeping itself hidden in dark places when
you may feel its tiny, yet profound reach
course through your blood
Going straight into your heart mixed with the
fear, greed, hate, disease, malcontent, misunderstandings of the world
At which point it transforms to pure Kindness once again
to circulate through you and out into
the big, wide world so that it is involuntary, like your breathing
An involuntary hopefulness restoring
a voluntarily negative space

-Carmen