This is the story of Jo, or Josephine, if you want to be formal. Jo is the sweet and kindhearted daughter of a colleague and good friend, and she’s a typical kid in many ways. She wants to play the ukelele like her mom. Jo sings in the church kids’ choir, and loves to go to the beach, and idolizes her older sibling. Jo always seems to have a big smile, at least in the photos I see of her on Facebook. But in one unique way Jo is unlike any other five-year-old kid I know or have ever known.
You see, for Jo’s fifth birthday earlier this month, she had but one wish. One hoped for gift. One item at the top of her present list. She pined not for a doll or a baseball glove or a board game like Candyland. Not for a pair of new shiny leather shoes or some kid sized crocs. Nope. All Jo wanted for her big day was to watch her favorite local sewage disposal company pump out her family’s septic system in the side yard.
That’s it. That is what she wanted the most.
Jo’s love affair with the Bay State Sewage Disposal Company began when, as a toddler, she’d watch company technicians do their thing with a big, huge pipe shoved down into a hole in the ground and, for whatever reason, she was fascinated by this. Mom Beth decided to let the company know and that’s when the kindness began. The care. Jo was invited to visit their headquarters in person and there was welcomed with open arms and real enthusiasm, given an official lime green T-shirt to wear, with the company logo, just like the grown-up sewer specialists got to wear.
Who knows why kids have the likes that they do? At the age of three, my baby sister Claire liked nothing more than to watch the weekly visit of the trash truck guys as they manhandled and dumped out our dented and full metal barrels. When I was five, I was fascinated by all things John F. Kennedy, me being his namesake and all, as an election day baby. Some kids love Legos. Other kids love sanitation I suppose.
Now Jo’s big day—one day after her birthday—was on the 10th of April. That morning Bay State Sewage Disposal technician Nichole came by for a visit and a tech call. Jo stood by and watched with joy as all the family’s…well, let’s just say “muck” …was sucked up and out and then into a bright red truck. Jo got to sit up in the cab, her arms stretching up to hold on to the big steering wheel. Nichole brought a birthday card for Jo signed by folks from the office. But the biggest surprise for Jo was about to come.
As Jo and her mom and dad stood at the end of their suburban driveway, a convoy of eight trucks from the company drove by and with their air horns honking and their drivers waving to their number one fan, they gave Jo the best present of all, the most amazing gift really any of us can hope for in this often rough and tumble life.
They showed Jo kindness, simple human goodness, and care. They didn’t have to do that and no doubt they could have been out on some other calls or just hanging out back at the office but instead, all of those people went out of their way to make a little girl feel special, like the most important person in the world.
Who among us would not want to feel that way? To be treated with such surprising kindness and such sincere warmth and attention. All of us as children of God, as very human humans—we each need to know and be reminded every single day, that we are loved. That we matter. That our life on the earth makes a difference in the lives of others. There’s a little five-year-old kid still alive in all of us and all they want, all we want, really, is to be treated well, with a little mercy and a little love and a little joy. If I get that every day, no matter what the world might throw my way, I can take it and why? Because I am strengthened for someone showed me kindness. A stranger. A friend. A neighbor. A co-worker. A family member.
It's no great revelation to name the truth that right now, our world is so often anything but kind. Open the newspaper or listen to the news or surf the web and these are all filled with sadness, so much carnage and hurt. Mean-spiritedness too. It seems worse now in 2023, more than ever before. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because we have public leaders who bully others, and an ex-President who somehow made it socially ok to verbally beat up and publicly humiliate people. Maybe it’s because of the gun violence that is so prevalent now, that it is so prevalent and so shocking, that we are no longer shocked by such cruelty. Maybe life feels less kind because COVID sent us all away from each other.
Who knows? But this I absolutely do know.
Kindness counts. Kindness creates a better world. Kindness is never, ever wasted. Kindness is needed by you, by me, needed universally. No kindness? No life. No good life. So, happy birthday Jo! And happy kindness day Bay State Sewage Disposal Company. You cared. You were kind. God love you!
As the American philosopher William James once said to a nephew seeking life guidance, “Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind.”
Today, be kind.
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