gratitude

it was one of those rare days,when i was picking my eight year old son from his school.(usually it was my mom's allotted task). After picking him up, as we were returning, we noticed one of his class mates standing and sobbing profusely outside the school building.

a little probing and inquiries later, in fits and starts, she sobbed thru her story.... which turned out to be that nobody from home, had come to pick her up that day. i pacified her and offered to take her home.

only glitch was that, we were kind of family enemies..i.e. you know the kind...close family friends who fall out with each other, and then never getting to patching  up again...... our families had fallen out, when her mom and I were little kids.

it was not without trepidation that i rang her doorbell, after walking thru 'very familiar but not visited for years' lanes, and a small pinch at the heart, when i saw her mom at the door. after that it is just a fast forward motion of events, in my mind..she running to her mom, crying, her mom shocked at the horror of her negligence and guilt, her immediate attempts to calm the child...i was sleeping, she explained more to her daughter than to  me......and we standing like outsiders..

since our work was done, we left. and a week later when i met her, and we ignored each other like all other times. i was mildly disappointed. sure, i was not upset that she didn't thank me at that very moment, cause i had not expected it then... i knew she had been distraught at that time, but a week later.........didn't i deserve some acknowledgement, for getting her daughter safely home?

a year later, she sauntered towards me suddenly, with a handful of chocolates, smiling gaily, thrust them all at once, into my forced open palms...do u know what day this is? she began gaily, without any formal beginnings.

no, i said, wondering, what had changed in the meanwhile?

its exactly a year since u brought daughter home..i am sorry, i was unable to thank u that day.

i was pleasantly surprised...i had initially  thot maybe she had felt that i needn't have made such a hue and cry and brought her kid home. they werent that late..may be she felt i was trying unnecessarily trying  to obligate her something.. thats the only way i cud rationalise her actions at that time..that she didnt want my obligations, cause of  of our unhappy past history.

however, when i observed  that she had even kept note of the date a whole year later,  i realized that whatever her reasons, at least she remembered .....and though late in showing her gratitude, when she did it, she did it wholeheartedly...

  i learnt a great lesson that day............. no kindness/goodness goes unnoticed. maybe it takes years to reach fruition., but it does finally.