Kind

 She sits on a porch swing breaking up beans into her faded apron. She's got a kerchief around her head and her hair is tied up in a bun. She has glasses perched on her sharp nose, and wrinkles so deep that her face looks like a roadmap. Those wrinkles extend into her hand as I watch them break the beans methodically. 

She pushes her foot back and forth as the wind caresses my arm. I'm snuggled up next to her as close as I can get without being in her lap, and still somehow she maintains balance and keeps breaking those beans. The cars fly by on the highway and there is a bird singing in the tree next to the porch. Even as a young child, I close my eyes and drink it in... the feel of sunshine, the taste of popsicle still sweet on my tongue, the feel of the wind blowing my hair, falling loose from the ponytail securing it out of my eyes. 

I rub my hand on her soft skin and listen to her hum softly. We don't have to speak, because the words are there, present just as close as the Holy Spirit. I don't know the song she's humming but it's some hymn, I'm sure, a silent prayer and praise to the One who created her and the beans and the wind and the sky and the tree and me... 

I open my eyes and glance up into her face, drinking in her smile as she puts the white plastic tupperware bowl onto the gray concrete porch. The dog lazily stretches on the rug in front of the door, lolling his tongue and following her movements with his eyes. She leans over and pats him on the head as she opens the door, and beckons for me to follow her. 

Just an ordinary day.... mundane, every day activities lived sacrificially for those she loved. 

Her dark brown eyes behind her large plastic framed glasses twinkle among the wrinkles, and in this moment, I see the epitome of someone who is "kind."