Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around. 
~Leo Buscaglia, Author & Speaker, 1924 – 1988

Sometimes extending kindness to others requires virtually no personal sacrifice, while other times it requires a sizeable amount of personal sacrifice. In the grand scheme of things, this one seemed small.

"T" in her tap outfit.

Sunday was my niece’s annual dance recital. This is the event for which they rehearse and practice all year long. And every student from the dance studio participates in at least one dance number – sometimes several. For the past three years, I have been unable to go to the dance recital because I worked a job with a Sunday shift that started right in the middle of the dance recital time. One year before I started that job, I didn’t go thanks to a really nasty migraine. I think, in her 6 or 7 years of dance lessons, I have only been to the dance recital once. And while I really enjoyed getting to see T’s dance numbers, the rest of the 2 & ½ hours of the event are not all that interesting. The teeny tiny girls are cute all dressed up, but half of them barely even move once they get on stage – the last time I went, one little girl who was probably 3 actually laid down on the stage during her number. Ideally, I would love to go and see T’s routines and be in and out of there in 20 minutes. But it doesn’t work that way. And this particular Sunday, it would have been really easy to find “other things to do” rather than go sit in a dark auditorium in the middle of the afternoon, watching 70+ girls I don’t know.

But none of the things I could have been doing on a beautiful, sunny day could have been more important than making sure my only niece knew how much we love her and how proud we are of her. I can’t really show her that I support and appreciate her and all of her hard work this year any other way than to come and applaud her at her dance recital. I didn’t really care about all of the rest of it – it turned out to be more entertaining and not nearly as tedious as I had remembered from the previous recital. I cared about T and her effort and I wanted her to know that there were some extra people in the audience just for her that day. As a performer, I know what it does to your confidence and morale to know that there are not just a few but several people in the audience who came to see you. And I wanted T to have that feeling – to make her experience just that much more special. I don’t expect that my specific attendance was a factor, but the role I played in increasing her audience count was.

As it turns out, I got another chance to do a nice thing while I was there. While reading through the program that listed each dancer’s name in each routine, I noticed the name of another girl whose family we know. So I made sure to pay close attention to her routines also. It just so happens that after the recital, I passed her family in the lobby. I waved to them and said “Tell M we saw her and she did a great job!” So while we weren’t there to see M, I was able to let her family know that I did recognize her effort and give them a little extra unexpected praise for her performance. A little unsolicited praise can go a long way – especially when it comes from an unexpected source.

So my small sacrifice of a sunny Sunday afternoon hopefully made a difference in the day of two lovely and talented young ladies who danced their hearts out for us that afternoon. And my laundry and tall grass were still there when we got home, awaiting their turns to capture my attention. They weren’t nearly as captivating!