Kindness Starts With One®

A gift

My dad was the kindest person. He loved to craft and started making Victorian dolls as a hobby. Each one took hours and he painstakingly curled ringlets around scewers and hand wove raffia hats. One time a friend of our family was in the last weeks of her cancer treatment. We heard she had lost her eyesight through the treatment. My dad knew she had long admired his beautiful dolls so he made one for her, and knowing she wouldn’t be able to see it, wove a raffia basket and filled it with lavender for the doll to hold and for our friend to be able to smell. The doll was visually more beautiful than ever before, dressed in hues of lavender- a delight. I was a child and I marvelled at the time why he would spend so much time on something that she wouldn’t be able to see. But I could tell this was an outpouring of love and he wanted to give her something really special. He showed me every day the power of kindness and I hope he would be proud of the kindness I have shown in my life to honour how he taught me to live.