My mother was a simple woman who did good things for people around her. Not because she wanted to keep up appearances or portray herself as something she wasn’t. In fact, my mother did so many kind acts for people I felt were unworthy of her kindness. In my lifetime I saw many people hurt my mother, some closest to her and some that had only met this corny looking white woman in passing. Regardless, to her last breath my mother kept an easy smile and a gentle word for those who crossed her path.

It infuriated me and growing up I held all the anger I never saw in my mother’s eyes close to my heart. It took her absence to understand the why. It wasn’t that my mother’s kindness made her a weak victim in this world. It was the amazing power of her genuine compassion and mercy that brought her closer to Him in her final days. No matter what she’d been through or how dire the situation she was in my mother showed love and kindness to every person. When she died, though not rich, not physically her best, and weary of the long road what my mother was is at peace .

What you give to this world, the world will gives back to you in rapid order. I learned the hard way. I treated people with distrust and general anger for a life I imagined they had that was better than mine and as if I willed it into existence God brought me low and proved my negative thoughts a prophecy. Then on my 40th birthday something in me changed. I was tired of being angry and the energy it extracted from me also distracted from my goals and blinded me to my joy.

I didn’t do anything awe inspiring except doing good, even when I have an opportunity to hurt, to seek vengance. I just do good and my life keeps giving back to me. I have found a peace that I can’t explain to people around me and I’m becoming a different person that I don’t even recognize but I love. I love her very much.