Wednesday, December 10, 2008

The Receipt of Kindness

When the Communist was alive it was often a real problem dealing with the bureaucracy of hospitals and Social Services.

Now he's dead, suddenly everything is easy and everyone is being lovely to us.

I did a roleplay job today and those people I was working for are lovely anyway - but today, everyone was specially kind to me. The roleplay was a new one and had been planned since August and I really didn't want to let them down and not do it.

My brother Michael and I have made many, many phone calls this week to officials, relatives and friends and everyone has been absolutely charming.

Because I'm not religious, my philosophy of life can be crystallised into a rather vague "we should be nice to each other". In the past couple of days, everyone has been delightful to us. Some people, of course, always are.

It's a shame that all this kindness only kicks in with some people, though, when you preface whatever you're saying with "My father died on Monday".

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Occasionally the 'my father died on...' card doesn't enduce the expected kindness so I am glad it has for you. Of course when it doesn't it is hurtful and somewhat mystifying because, like you, I think people should be nice to each other.

I hope you don't often or ever encounter the odd person who seems to lack the basic empathy to be kind to the bereaved. And if you do, we can always send the boys round!

8:27 pm  

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