It is impossible to know another person completely, to understand the way they are impacted by life, to experience the day as they experience it. In the deepest ways we are strangers to each other. Isolated universes drifting, colliding, and orbiting around each other. Our fears, our worries, the pain we carry, can never be fully communicated. For these reasons and more that I do not fully understand: we should always be kind.

There is so much more we do not know about each other than we could ever understand. The ocean horizon reminds me of my maternal grandmother. What does it say to you? A properly cinched neck tie makes me miss the paternal grandfather I wish I had more time to know. What does a well dressed man trigger in your mind? The smell of the low tide makes me feel warm and at home. Where does the smell take you? The sound of crashing waves reminds me of the time my wife almost drowned. What memory does the sound bring to you? I barely know myself. How could I possibly understand the lived experiences of another.

We are all struggling. Sometimes to remember where we left our keys. Sometimes to pick the right outfit for an interview. Sometimes to do the parts of our job we wish were tasked to others. Sometimes to change the things over which we have no power. The severity varies from day to day – the constant is that we each in our own way fail again and again.

At the same time we each experience life as miracles piled one onto the other. The sunset we see from our deck after a night when sleep would not settle in deep enough – leaving us to rise hours before the alarm was set. The unexpected burst of laughter from a loved one in response to something we say. The smile from a passing stranger. A call from a distant friend and the conversation as though no time has passed between our last meeting. The taste of a fresh strawberry in season. The smell of a wood fire on a late autumn night. Waking to a new day empty of plans or appointments. The sound of rain falling outside our bedroom window on a Sunday morning.  

The one constant in all of it is the strangeness between us. I cannot know what it is like to be you. You cannot know what it is like to be me. Today is the birthday of your son. For me it is the day my best friend was killed by a driver asleep at the wheel. For others it is just another Thursday in another week, part of another month, in one more year. 

It is because we are strangers to each other that we must be kind – always. You never know – anything, really, about anybody. Though maybe that is not completely true. These things I have come to know for certain: a smile is contagious, laughter is uplifting, listening fills the heart, extending grace calms the soul, and being kind – somehow – makes even the deepest pain begin to heal.

Peace,

Chris