For 2025 — Maintain The Kindness You Take

After all nine of the people she called failed to answer their phones, Sharia tried again. Lenora answered after the sixth ring.

“Hello,” she answered. “Who is this?”

“Lenora, it’s me, Sharia,” she identified herself.

“Good to hear from you after so many years. How are you doing?” Lenora questioned.

A few minutes later, the call ended. In frustration, Sharia called her mother. Eight rings later, her mom asked, “What is wrong now?”

“How do you know something is wrong?” Sharia’s frustration demands.

“Because you only call when something is wrong or you need something,” her mother reminds her.

Ignoring her mother’s statement, she said, “I want to return home for a week. I am calling all of my friends and. .”

“None of them answered, ah?” her mother interjected.

“Ah, ….ah, yes. But Lenora answered and refused to help me,” she complains.

“Why should she?” her mother asked.

“Because we are friends,” she defends.

“What do you want from them?”

“I want to go home for a week and don’t want to stay at the resort or a hotel,” she explained.

“You want to stay with one of them?” her mother asked in shock.

“We grew up together. We shared many things, including friendships. They stayed at our house often when we were back home,” she recalls.

“You left our country five years ago and never looked back. Not even to wish any of them a Merry Christmas or Happy New Year. None of those friends ever heard from you. You forget their birthdays too, even though they didn’t forget yours. No connection on Facebook or Twitter. And I saw happy birthday wishes from some of them that you didn’t bother to acknowledge or respond to. Now you want their help. You suddenly remembered the good times and had the nerve to call them asking for help!” her mother said in shock.

Silence spoke.

Her mother continued, “Did you know that Lenora’s mom died of cancer three months ago? And Paula lost her father three weeks ago?”

“You kept in contact with them. Can you talk to them for me?”

“Girl, I swear if you were here, I would knock you unconscious!” her mother shouts.

Her silence was deafening and annoying, and her mother continued hammering in the truth with anger and disappointment, “That is not how I raised you! You maintain your car, job, apartment, hair, nails, eyelashes, body, relationship with your man, and whatever you want in your life. The kindness you get from all those people must also be maintained. You can’t ignore people, and then when you need their help, you call them consciencelessly, asking for help!”

“I have a lot to do here,” she defends.

“And they don’t?”

“Mom, everything is different here,” she continues her defense.

“I raised you never to forget kindness and return it every time you take it! I warned you not to take kindness for granted, or it will avoid you. All of those friends that you forget were good to you. I didn’t raise you to use people and take friendships for granted!”

“What should I do?” her guilt asked.

“Take a gift for all of them and rekindle the friendship. Stay at the resort,” her mother counseled.

“I can’t afford to give all of them something.”

“Don’t take if you aren’t ready to give. Friendship and kindness will remain stagnant if they are not maintained. Stagnant is next to dead. I didn’t raise you to take life or anyone for granted!” her mother’s anger showed.

“Then I won’t go then,” she relents.

“Rekindled your friendship, it’s an essential gift, and so is kindness. These are kind people. We don’t allow kind people to exit from our lives because of stupidity! Go to a resort and bring a gift for all of them. They don’t take without giving. I am ashamed of you. Because I know I raised you better than this!”

We all know a Sharia who doesn’t understand the value of friendship. Friendship is a precious gift, and so is kindness. But both must be maintained for friendship to grow and flourish to heal and help humanity.

For 2025, maintain your good friendship and give the kindness you want!

If your heart could speak, what would it say?

Never take friendship or kindness for granted. They possess life-saving abilities.

Thank you for reading this piece. I hope you enjoyed it.