The Unfathomable Power of Kindness...

HE sat there in his long sleeved white doctor's coat, looking every inch the part of the respectable elder surgeon. To hear his peers and patients, he was probably the best in the world, to hear his students he was a gentle man whose kindness had no limit, but that is not why I was here. I was here to speak to him about his charity. Seems his undercover work with children in the at risk communities leaked out and word got around that there was a doctor who helped a lot of children, mostly young boys find there way back from waywardness to contributing members of society. Some of the young men he mentored are now men of distinction, giving back to others, many doing it in his name. So I sat there, looking at this man of letters wondering at the chasm that separated him from those he reached out to and had to ask, why?

As an answer, he stood up and removed his coat, exposing his short sleeved arms and surprising me at the amount of tattoos and scars causing me to sit up. It seems my friend the doctor had a richer story than the one I had concocted for him in my head, and I sat back now to listen, not wanting to miss a word of the tale I was about to get.

From all appearances my friend the doctor did not start life in any means or manner that would have suggested him ending up where he was, and in fact, had it not been for two life changing twists of fate, he might not even have been here to tell this tale now. My friend the doctor was in a gang from the age of twelve and was in and out of trouble all the way up to his sixteenth birthday, when his Social Services case worker visited to tell him goodbye. Theirs had been a long and trying relationship, and now that it was officially at a close he wanted to give his young charge some last advice.

He said he was told that from today onward his file was on the big boy's table and that they were not only aware of him, they were waiting for him. That if he did not find a way to straighten up he would either end up dead or spend the rest of his life in a cage. He gave him a number for a friend who owned an electronics store and told him they were expecting him and would give him a job. With this last gesture his case worker said goodbye.

Naturally a quick study and bright, he not only got the job, he excelled and was promoted quickly to supervisor when fate intervened again. An elderly man came in to buy a home theatre system and, impressed by the young man's knowledge of electronics, invited him to install it at his new home as a private job. During the installation process the young man made other suggestions of items that the gentleman might buy including telecommunications and security systems and the elderly gentleman readily agreed. On afternoons when the store closed the young man would go to the old gentleman's house to work and one evening the man greeted him at the gate and said he had to be out of town for the week and asked the young man if he would house sit, gave him the keys and went on his way.

The doctor told how his young mind turned quickly to stealing and selling everything and disappearing with what would amount to more than a year's salary, when he found an envelope on the kitchen counter addressed to him that contained a brief note and money for groceries when something snapped in him. With tears in his eyes reminiscing, he remembered a time when no one had ever trusted him that much and in that moment it changed the way he saw himself. Long story short, when the elderly gentleman got back he broke down and spilled everything, and they talked for hours on end. Seems the young man was a slow learner and it cost him in school, forcing him to rebel for attention, first in school and then at home, ending up on the streets, initiated into a gang, and now here at seventeen.

The elderly gentleman was a doctor. He sent the young man to be tested and had his learning disability diagnosed. He worked with him to get him through primary, secondary and finally university. Standing there receiving his medical degree he confessed how he cried long tears as his benefactor had died the month before, proud of his young protege who had grown up to be such a fine young gentleman.

Now launched into an unstoppable trajectory and with all obstacles removed from his path the young man could not help but succeed, and as he excelled over the years to became one of the most respected surgeons in his field anywhere, he devoted his life to a kindness that changed his world and saved his life.

He said to me his favorite quotation was - “Live life as if nothing is a miracle. Or everything is.”

He modified it a bit to read – "Treat everyone as if everyone is a lost cause. Or no one is."

I walked away from that experience believing in miracles.