donating blood

My aunt was a regular blood donor, so I was curious about blood donation from a very young age. I once asked her why she donated — and I was amazed to learn how such a simple act could save lives. The first time I was able to donate myself, I was shocked at how easy the process was and how good it made me feel to do something for others.  For a number of years, I was a blood drive coordinator, and I learned even more about how important this kind act is.  Keep your eye out for a blood drive in your area and donate!

let me talk to you

Let me talk to you about hospitality or niceness or affection or helpfulness or warmth or unselfishness or benevolence or consideration or warmheartedness or friendliness or neighborliness or charitableness or gentleness or understanding or thoughtfulness or generosity or big-heartedness - in other words, kindness.  That's what this daily blog is all about.  Come join us each day and tell your friends too!

from Ralph Waldo Emerson

Essayist, poet, and lecturer Ralph Waldo Emerson said "You cannot do kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late." How true.

surrounded by loved ones

We have all hear the phrase surrounded by loved ones when a person passes away. In my thinking, one of the kindest things anyone can do is to simply be there. Not everyone has family, but we can all have friends - loved ones. Let us be there not only in the final hours, but all through life.

walking the earth like brothers

It's been many years since Martin Luther King Jr. said “We have flown the air like birds and swum the sea like fishes, but have yet to learn the simple act of walking the earth like brothers.” When will we learn?

Jonah's words

"It is a popular trend nowadays to say love is very much conditional. I've heard people compare it to a glass of water that eventually runs out when love isn't reciprocated. This encouragement of selfishness must stop," says my friend Jonah Kim. "True love is an infinite well and is absolutely unconditional," Jonah says.  I've shared this before, but it's important.  He concludes "True love feels almost helpless in its endless giving, without asking for anything in return.  And if the ones you love love you back, there is nothing more beautiful, precisely because we love without premeditated expectations."

thanks Mom

When Mom passed away on March 25th in 2013, I was a basket case. Seeing a loved one die is a difficult thing. Since then though, while I still miss her a lot, I have become stronger. Everything I am is because of her. She was one of the kindest people I ever have known and also one of the most loving. Mom also left me a note to read after she was gone. In it she said I had been the best son a mother could have, and she wished me a good life. "We'll be together again someday" was how she closed. Thanks Mom, for everything.