Remember small kindnesses from childhood?

Remember small kindnesses from childhood?
E

EGL

Registrant
I was thinking about this yesterday, with all the horrorible crap that we've experienced, do you remember small kindnesses that were done to you as a child?

I was thinking yesterday about one from when I was in second grade. I was 7 and had two co-girlfriends ( :D ) , Laura M____ and Lisa G_____ (it was their idea). At lunch one day, I don't know why but I mixed up my english peas with the mashed potatos on my plate. The teacher became indignant (starving children in China guilt trip thing), and ordered me to stay at the table after the other children had left and to not get up until I had eaten all of that mashed potatoes and english peas (I hate english peas). I sat there and cried. Laura and Lisa came and sat on either side of me and ate them.

I'm crying now thinking about them.

Anyone else?
 
I only remember one.

When I went to Camp Wildcat. It was a camp for underpriveged kids. A week of fun and care. I still remember the name of my counselor. Bob Bersbach. That was over forty years ago. He signed a clay model I had made. And, of course, when I got back to my foster home, they smashed it.

But I remember him. And his kindness.

In a way, it's a bad memory. Because it showed me how I should have been cared for.

Marc
 
I like peas. Especially when they are mixed with mashed potatos. Wish I had been there for you. Maybe they weren't being kind. Perhaps they were
still hungry... I am not really trying to be a jerk, it is just my basic nature.

My baby sitter made me sit on the floor and eat cold canned asperagus with my fingers. No one helped. But she had to clean the puke up off of the floor.

That is how it goes. Some guys get the girls. Some get sent to bed with bits of asperagus between their teeth.

Is there no justice?

Aden
 
Act of kindness,
Well, I had this friend. Actually, she was my best friend. Her name is Jennifer. We hung out alot. She was my protector. When the boys in class were picking on me, she always came to my defence. I never felt I was worth sticking up for, but she never failed me. I always wonder what happened to her. If only I did not move in the 6th grade, who knows what might have been.
Casey
 
I'm sorry. I just sat here for the longest time after reading your post and, I can't for the life of me, Come up with anything. I wish I could. I moved around so much, I don't remember any friends and the kids at school, the DSS school were, as messed up as I was. I didn't have any friends there. I'll have to think on this more.
 
This is a test, right?

Like Loki, I can't find that memory. There has to be one in here somewhere, but I just can't get at it. I remember bullies, rape, and angry faces.

OK, how about this: My great-grandmother came to live with us. One day she told me that if I could sprinkle salt on a birds tail, I could catch it. She gave me the salt shaker and sent me to play in the yard. So, great-grandma gave me an afternoon chasing birds with a salt shaker. It was fun.

Of course when I finally caught one my mom yelled at me and told me never to touch one of those dirty creatures evere again. but that is a different story...

Aden
 
Mostly I remember my aunt -- my dad's sister -- for lots of small things.

She was a great woman who shared what little she had with my brother and me and would have done more for us if she could have.
 
Isn't is strange how the kind and/or compassionate acts are the ones that can make us the saddest? I think it is the fact that we are shown how kids, and human beings, are supposed to be treated and we are hit with the realization that we are not. My best friend had his first kid almost 2 years ago now... he was pretty beat up as a kid emotionally and physically by his mom. He started crying one night because he realized that it is so easy to be a good and loving parent, and that he didn't get that and he deserved to.

I can remember many acts of compassion and kindness... I had a few great supporting people in my life. My grandfather was an amazing person and a huge influence in my life. He never yelled at me. And I have an aunt who isn't really an aunt by a friend of my mother's. She always treated me so well... still sends me birthday and holiday cards. But the type of act you speak of, that is a shouldering act. Sort of the "let me carry your burden, my brother" which is totally different than just having good people in your life.

And, yes... I think we all, everyday being here at MS, carry the burdens of each other and allow our fellow survivors to carry ours. Maybe I'm being overly sensitive here, but it seems to me that we are all eating each other's peas and mashed potatoes every time we read or post or chat here.
 
Originally posted by survive75:

...But the type of act you speak of, that is a shouldering act. Sort of the "let me carry your burden, my brother" which is totally different than just having good people in your life.

And, yes... I think we all, everyday being here at MS, carry the burdens of each other and allow our fellow survivors to carry ours. Maybe I'm being overly sensitive here, but it seems to me that we are all eating each other's peas and mashed potatoes every time we read or post or chat here.
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Beautifully put. Thank you very much. :)
 
I know there have to be some act of kindness in my history. :rolleyes: Yes, I remember one.

In school I was a very good student. So good that I was two years ahead in school (too bad because I was bullied out really bad :( ). Anyway, my second grade teacher, a sweet older man with an italian last name (who had very short legs as I remember they couldn't reach the floor when seated), decided to give the best students in class presents for their mothers for mother's day.

He said that the top five students will get one. I wasn't expecting any (I never thought of me as anything special), but was very happy to be the first one to be called. I still remember his smile when he saw my reaction when he called me. :) I also remember my mother's surprised face when she got her present.

Thinking about this makes me feel good and sad. I have long forgotten how that kind of happiness feels (not trying to feel sorry for myself, but rather thinking about recovering enough to feel like that again).
 
David

your post sounds so familiar to mine, I took the wrong school and ended up in the top tier of "achievers", could have been at the top but didn't want to be labelled a swot, don't like the brand name, my teachers knew I could do it.

Think there was loads of good things happened to make me :) but a great deal going on to mask it out also :(

Remember wanting so badly to go out with this girl and tried so hard, prob felt dirty, you know the thing, other things also, knew her best friend, who really wanted to go out with me, turned her down, the biggest mistake I can ever remember, hey, she wasn't bad looking, and I turned her down???

:eek: :confused:

Remember the woodwork teacher with his squeaky shoes and the way the kids always mocked him behind his back, he would say that boy is going to cut itself as the kid was holding a chisel, every boy was "itself", not "himself" but it made us all laugh :D :D :D

ste
 
hi - small acts of kindness-huh...

mine was different, my perp took me at ten and made me his g/f for 7 months. he took me to games, movies, out to eat- bought me shit, all those things to suck me in to his needed and repeated sexual conquests. so, definatley not kindness acts but pure manipulation and being a predator.

then, i hid it , acted tough, my dad was a marine. i could "hack" anythiing and everything. my dad and others were always kind when they were around i should say. i got material shit, lived a lie, hid my abuse, went to school, did good overall, but was fucked up in relationships and identity and being able to truly love me even up till now at 41.

so yeah, some kindnesss shit, i was whacked and did not even know it or believe it. faked it just fine i thought, now i am having to deal with it.

i guess better now than wait another 10 or 20 years and still be fucked up inside, not really liking myself that much, and not being able to be happy being by myself. oh,then withdrawing when i do have others.

take care, and oh gee, this is my 100th. i have been busy i guess in the last 3 and a half months trying to get better. am i?, just a bit. at least not living that dreaded lie i was. only told three people so far now and its 3"05 IN THE A.M., AND GUESS WHAT?, I'M AWAKE AND ROLLING AGAIN. "goota be fresh" and act like i am fine again at work tommorrow promptly at 8"00.

anyhow, blessings to you all, guy
 
Originally posted by EGL:
I was thinking about this yesterday, with all the horrorible crap that we've experienced, do you remember small kindnesses that were done to you as a child?

I was thinking yesterday about one from when I was in second grade. I was 7 and had two co-girlfriends ( :D ) , Laura M____ and Lisa G_____ (it was their idea). At lunch one day, I don't know why but I mixed up my english peas with the mashed potatos on my plate. The teacher became indignant (starving children in China guilt trip thing), and ordered me to stay at the table after the other children had left and to not get up until I had eaten all of that mashed potatoes and english peas (I hate english peas). I sat there and cried. Laura and Lisa came and sat on either side of me and ate them.

I'm crying now thinking about them.

Anyone else?
Click to expand...
 
Darn ! Sorry to be so blonde, but it has been a while since I have been to this site, and I got confused and it looks like I used the wrong buttons again to make a reply.
So please disregard the post above. :-)

But what I wanted to say was that when I was 6 & 7, I had a friend whose family sharecropped a dairy farm, and lived over a hill behind me. I spent as many hours/days/nights there with them as I could. They even came and took me to church on Wednesday nights when they knew I would be alone at home.
Being able to share their family experience and being given basics of God and the love of Jesus with other children in church, has unquestionably saved my life and kept me away from addictions, violence, and prison or death. I was given something other than sexual molestaion and abandonment to draw memories from.
After close to 40 years since last seeing me, I recently was able to locate my friends mother and made contact with her by phone. She is late 80's or early 90's today, and as soon as she picked up the phone, she immediatly knew me and we began sharing!
It has been 40 years and I have been able to let her know how her and her families simple concern saved my life, and allowed me to have a family of my own.
We are planning to arrange a meeting sometime in the near future with our families.
If I had not been molested again in teen years by a theraputic professional and my psychiatric social worker father, I would be complete and whole today. There is absolutly no comparison between Gods love of an uneducated mother and a family of share croppers, and the hideous money hungry pseudo professional pollyannas who want you to believe they can can be your savior.
The love of Jesus vs money and corrupt pharamceuticals pushers.
Evil is always overcome with good, and it will happen this time too.
Thanx for the opportunity to share. Tom S.
 
I was thinking recently about the time when my dad came to my school, and confronted the bully who was threatening me. It reminds me that my dad must have cared for me some.
 
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