Kindess

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."

-Plato

I write these words as I sit nearby a coworker who has, for the past few days, seemed to be fighting a hard battle.

I don't know her, I don't know her name, and I don't know her story, but I do know that she and a friend sat quietly in the corner the other day crying and whispering... the only audible words being "doctor" and "biopsy."

A few days later I saw her crying out of the corner of my eye as a friend gently rubbed her back while she wept.

Her eyes seem constantly tear-filled, her movements somber and sometimes nervous- hands occasionally rubbing against her thigh or pressed softly against her mouth, her eyebrows often furrowed, eyes distant- and her spirit slightly withdrawn from what goes on in the rest of the office.

I don't know her, I don't know her name, and I don't know her story, but regardless of whether she is fighting a battle or watching someone dear to her heart as he or she struggle, this woman embodies one truth I am sure of: Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.