Kindness Returned - 30 Years Later

An acquaintance shared a story this week of how a woman’s kindness 30 years earlier had been returned.

She said a friend, in her mid-sixties, had been contacted on Facebook by a man she’d been engaged to in the 1970s. The engagement ended after seven years when the woman realized she’d never be happy with him because of his character defects.  She lost track of him a few years later.

The woman, who’d remained single all her life, wondered why her former sweetheart would contact her after thirty years. What could he possibly want?  However, after some soul searching, she agreed to meet him in a restaurant after he convinced her he had good intentions. In fact, he was bringing his current wife to the meeting.

When she met with them he explained that he had a terminal illness and looked her up because he wanted to leave her a large sum of money. He said that even though they didn’t marry, he never forgot how well she treated him. He accepted that it was his behavior that ruined the relationship, that he was responsible for the breakup. But her kindness during their time together - and through their breakup – stayed with him all of his life. 

We often hear of karma - how what comes around goes around - and sometimes we’re blessed with real life examples of kindness returned.