I used to believe kindness was a wellspring, always flowing, always available. Like the water from the convent well—clear, cool, and endless. I thought it was simply a matter of choosing to give, regardless of how tired I felt. After all, wasn’t that the heart of it? To offer what little we have, even when we have so little left.
Then came the months after Arthur left. The house was too quiet, the silence a physical weight. I’d sit at my kitchen table at dawn, the coffee gone cold, staring at the empty chair across from me. Mrs. Gable from next door, her own grief fresh, knocked one Tuesday, holding a bowl of stew. "Thought you might need this, dear," she said, her voice gentle. I looked at the stew, then at my own hands, trembling slightly. The effort of lifting the bowl, of saying the right thing, felt like climbing a mountain. I opened my mouth, and what came out was sharp, brittle: "I can’t. I just can’t right now."
The look on her face—confusion, then hurt—stayed with me. I cried then, not for Arthur, but for the lie I’d been living. Kindness isn’t a currency we can draw from an empty cup. It’s a river, and sometimes, the river runs dry. I thought I was failing God by not being generous, but I was failing myself by refusing to admit I was broken.
It took months to understand: the hardest kindness isn’t always giving. Sometimes, it’s the quiet courage to say, "I am empty. I need to be filled." To let the stew sit on the porch, to accept the neighbor’s quiet understanding when I couldn’t speak. There’s a kind of grace in that honesty, in the space between the offering and the refusal. It’s not about being perfect. It’s about being real.
I wonder sometimes if the world would be kinder if we all admitted we’re running on empty more often. What if we stopped pretending the well never runs dry? What if we let the silence speak instead of filling it with false generosity?
— Gertrude Carroll, still wondering