You’ve got to get up every morning with a smile on your face, and show the world all the love in your heart,
Then people gonna treat you better.
You’re gonna find, yes, you will,
That you’re beautiful, as you feel.
—Carole King
I can hear my mom singing those words as I write this now. In fact, I have heard her voice or pictured her singing/dancing many times lately. A car commercial with a catchy tune will come on and I can picture her dancing to it. Perhaps it is a sign from her. The song “Have I told you lately that I love you?” popped into my head randomly and I could also picture my mom singing that. Perhaps not much of a random coincidence at all.
It is an interesting concept, the one of being kind and how it can spread. This morning, my dad ran into a lady at Starbucks with a “Be Kind” pin on. He had seen this quote in a morning reading and mentioned it to the lady. She ended up giving him the pin and told him a story about how the Be Kind movement was started in Napa Valley, California by girls riding the subway to school and noticing nobody was smiling or friendly on the train.
That interaction of kindness between my dad and a lady at Starbucks shows one person being kind spreads to others. Being kind to others or vice versa makes us feel good and in turn, makes the other feel good. That act of kindness is one that will hopefully spread far beyond the original interaction.
This reminds me of the movie Pay it Forward, where a kid has an idea of spreading good deeds. It ends up making the news and spreads much further than he thought. Although it is a somewhat sad ending with him being killed, droves of people showed up to remember him at his house at the end of the movie. One act of kindness of him helping out a homeless man who was in trouble had touched thousands by the end of the movie.
Back to the beginning where I spoke about my mom. Clearly, anyone who you meet would say she tried to treat everyone she met with kindness. That, in turn, rubbed off on me, my family, and far beyond. There wasn’t a situation she didn’t have a song to brighten the mood. That is how she is remembered fondly by so many, as someone who went about life singing.
Although I don’t go about life with a song for every instance, I try to look at the positives of things. I hope others can see that I do as well. As much as there aren’t any real positives to be taken out of someone dying, I can take solace in the fact that my mom touched so many people with her positivity, smiles, and songs.
She truly did get up every morning with a smile on her face and showed the world love.
Writing Through It 