Kindred

If April is the cruellest month, then October, half a year apart, must be the kindest. As Keats might have said, it is a season of fellow moodfulness; it is the time towards the day of the dead, when the year also dies. (That, I got from Susan Cooper.)

October is kind, it wraps us in blankets of the fallen. It tells us that it will get cold, but it remains warmer than winter. Where the fall comes in the North, all green is red, and all is well red.

And I recall many times with people I used to know, and some are gone, and some have nowhere left to go.

Kindness

Occasionally, I am overwhelmed with kindness from those who have known me briefly or not at all. Acquaintances over a few distant years, supervisors and subordinates of a few short months, peers of nodding acquaintance, students of long-forgotten classes – all these people have shown me kindness, and as I sit here counting my blessings, I realise that quite often, the amount of debt we can owe others is far more than we can pay.

There is only one way to balance the books: if each of us returns kindness for kindness, if each of us creates more kindness spontaneously, the 'kindness economy' will boom and the bread cast upon the waters will return manifold to each of us.

Thank you to all of you who have helped me, responded to me, shone light upon my path, and fended darkness away from me. Each of you, no matter how long our contact or acquaintance, occupies a place of value in my heart.