Worth Repeating

Cassie left a note on my previous blog about a family dinner that was not so happy for her....
I replied with this, one of my very first blogs, which my sister Ann has just read for the first time...
I think it is worth repeating!

little actions of kindness

Today I have been thinking of something that happened many years ago.It was a little action of kindness that had a profound effect on me and made me believe in the humanity within man.One Sunday, I think it was around new year, we were having lunch at home, all of us "visiting" my parents. My twin sister and I would have been around 26, my elder sister and her husband in their forties. My mother was a not-so-secret drinker and was pretty smashed as I recall. She carried on preparing the lunch and serving it as though sober, but it was all too apparent to all how much she had indeed drunk. In typical English/family secret way we all tried ignore her slurring and clumsiness, but as she tottered off into the kitchen my father could not bare it anymore and burst into tears.We were all mortified!, and concentrated on our lunches as though they were the only meals we had ever been presented with. Only My elder sister reacted. Immediately and gently, and without undue fuss she lent over and cupped her hand on my father's cheek. It lasted but a moment, but in that one tiny act of kindness she gave him her support,affection and control, it quietened him and he carried on his meal as we all did.That gesture strengthened us all, and I have never forgotten it, it was something unique and special and these things are often surprisingly overlooked in our self absorbed lives.I am glad I remembered it