Sometimes the little things can bring the most joy

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I was watching a video of this woman and her son, and how she has neighbors who show up for them all of the time. She's a single mom and lives far from her family, and she has several neighbors who show up and do things for her and her son. They do things like fixing her tires on her car, taking her son on walks, mowing her lawn, and going to her son's games. It made me smile to see kindness on that level. I always think about the way children can bring joy to others, the way her little boy brought joy to her neighbors. We often think about how these kinds of people do kind things, and sometimes don't realize that the presence of others can bring joy to those showing up as well. I oftentimes think about when my son was little, and we took a bus trip to Pittsburgh. On our way back, we met a few people who were getting a kick out of my son. He was about three at the time. He was in his chatty era, not that you would guess he was ever very chatty if you met the quiet kid, he is now. My son found this woman on the bus and was smiling and chatting with her, at first I thought maybe he was annoying her, but she was smiling and telling me how he was making her day. Another time on the bus on the way back from Pittsburgh, we met a man who was just released from prison, and I can't lie, I was very leery of this man and kept a close eye on my son. The man was chatting with my son, and he told us that he made mistakes and he paid on many fronts, including having to be away from his own children, and that seeing our son made him smile, and getting to hang out with him for a couple of hours on the bus while we waited to get to our destination brought his heart some much needed joy, he said he missed out on his own kids growing up the past couple of years because of stupid choices he made. My son was a very outgoing 3 and 4-year-old. He loved walking up to people and talking to them, which always made me a little uneasy, but I just stayed with him and watched him, and I'd watch as people I thought were a little grouchy would light up, because sometimes kids know something we don't. I must confess I've been living in my current location for the past 6 years and barely know my neighbors, but when I lived in an apartment in town, I would take my son out to ride his bike on the sidewalk behind our apartment. He met a bunch of neighbors out there who loved him. He also made friends with the one younger couple who lived upstairs. He chatted everyone up. I remember him walking to the neighbors who lived in the building a few buildings down from us, and I was apologizing for him disrupting her, and she said he was more than fine and that he was so sweet and polite. He told her she was doing such a great job planting flowers, and she said she needed to keep him around for motivation. Soon, my son had a bunch of older people out on their patios watching as he rode his bike, and he'd stop occasionally to chat one of them up. They had dubbed him "The little biker boy". I don't think they ever even learned his actual name. They just nicknamed him the little biker boy and would get excited to see him out riding his bike. I remember it had been a particularly long and cold winter so we hadn't gotten outside much, and the second we had gotten some nice weather we had just bought him a scooter for Christmas and we set it up and let him ride it, and he went out on his scooter and I heard one of the neighbors yell across the way "Hey, little biker boy got a scooter!" It made me smile. One of the neighbors saw us outside practicing for my son's t-ball game, and he brought a big bag of old t-ball equipment over for him. The same neighbor fixed my son's bike seat once he saw it needed adjusting. They were small things, but they meant a lot to my son and to me. We all thanked them. I loved how they were so kind to my son, but they also seemed to get a lot of enjoyment from my son. The neighbor my son liked upstairs eventually moved, but we saw him once while we were walking downtown, and he got excited and waved at my son, and I heard him say to the other person in the car, "That kid used to be my neighbor". My son brought joy to people without even trying. He was just chatty and liked people. I think a lot about our old neighbors, and I was sad when we had to move. My son had grown attached to them, but I'm not even sure if he remembers them now, but I'll never forget them. I'm not sure if they're alive now, or if they even still live there. A lot of people moved when our complex was bought out by a bigger company, and rent went up. I always just hope they know how much joy they brought to a little boy. My son has changed a lot from those days, but he still brings joy to others with his kindness. I think sometimes we take for granted what the little things we say and do mean to others. It isn't always about grand gestures; sometimes it's simply being kind. Doing little things for others that may not take a lot of your time or mean much to you, but could mean everything to them.