Kindness is a lot of things

I was racing through the late part of this morning—cleaning the house, buying more flowers, hurrying up and down the aisles of the Farmer's Market in search of my father's favorite foods.  I arrived home with ten minutes to spare, arranged the things on the table, hurried down the hall, and opened the door:  He was there.

My father has been looking through my mother's books—her first editions of F. Scott Fitzgerald, her signed Ulysses S. Grants, her Maxfield Parrish pages.  In the midst of it all, he found this, an early gift that my mother had given to me.  It was a book about kindness.  Those are her words, written to me.

A reminder.  And also one more sign of how dearly my father continues to carry her spirit forward.