Readers’ Turn: The Lasting Ripples of Everyday Kindness

Illustration by Lumi Liu

Dear readers,

For our special new series, “The Healing Power Within,” we invited readers to reflect on our sixth virtue: kindness.

The stories we received shared a common observation: kindness is often expressed through small, ordinary acts that affirm another person’s worth. Though these gestures may seem insignificant in the moment, they create a ripple effect: inviting hope, strengthening human connection, inspiring others to pay kindness forward, and leaving lasting effects that can span generations. Below are some of the standout reader submissions.

“The Healing Power Within” is a six-week series exploring timeless virtues and the surprising science behind how they improve our health, strengthen our relationships, and change our lives.

The following readers’ stories have been edited for style and clarity.

Lighting the Way

Submitted by: Senol Tasdelen, Oakville, Ontario

One act of kindness can change an entire life. I know because it changed mine.

I lost my father when I was only two years old. At the age of six, I entered an orphanage in Turkey. Like many children there, I often wondered whether anyone truly believed in my future. Life was difficult, and it would have been easy to believe that my circumstances defined who I would become.

But throughout those years, I encountered people whose kindness quietly transformed my life.

Some were teachers who encouraged me when I doubted myself. Others were caregivers who treated me with dignity and compassion. They didn’t give me money or special privileges. Instead, they gave me something far more valuable—they believed in me. They reminded me that my past did not have to determine my future.

Those simple acts of kindness gave me hope, and hope gave me determination.

Years later, I graduated from pharmacy school, became an entrepreneur, helped introduce life-saving medical technologies in my country, built health-care businesses, immigrated to Canada, and started a new life from scratch.

Today, at 70 years old, I am the author of two English books, “I Chose Forward” and “Shadows Across the Line,” both inspired by the belief that even in our darkest moments, kindness and hope can light the way.

Whenever people ask how I overcame so many hardships, my answer is always the same: I did not do it alone. Someone cared. Someone encouraged me. Someone chose kindness when they didn’t have to.

That is why I try to pass that kindness on. Through my books, through conversations with readers, and through supporting people who are facing difficult times, I hope to become for someone else what others once were for me.

Kindness does not always make headlines. Often, it is a quiet word of encouragement, a helping hand, or simply believing in another person. Yet those small moments can echo through a lifetime.

I am living proof that one act of kindness can change the future of a child—and perhaps even generations that follow.

A Christmas to Remember

Submitted by: Jim McKay

As I read this very interesting Epoch Times article about the cab driver Kent Nerburn and his experiences, it brought back decades of memories of people I have met along my life’s journey.

Going back to the early days of the 1950s, when there wasn’t much money to buy gifts for Christmas, our farmer neighbours—two kind-hearted brothers—gave my parents two pairs of well-worn, patched boxing gloves, likely dating back to around 1915.

They told my dad that the gloves could be wrapped up and left for me so that I could get a Christmas gift, as they knew money and gifts were scarce for our family at the time.

I never forgot this deed of kindness, and I have kept these two pairs of boxing gloves ever since in a display case along with other memorabilia. I am now 78, and I think I was about 9 years old at the time. The brothers became great friends and neighbours to me for their entire life. They were wonderful, thoughtful people who cared more for others than for themselves.

I have many more memories of great deeds performed by both of my grandmothers, several teachers, and people I worked with for many decades. And since retiring, I have experienced many more great deeds up to the present time. As author Charlie T. Jones says, “Life is good!”

Helpful Tip

Submitted by: Constance Kellough

I am a senior but financially comfortable, blessed.

I show kindness by expressing heartfelt gratitude and leaving generous tips whenever someone has served me, whether it’s a hairdresser, manicurist, gas station attendant, or taxi driver.

One taxi driver responded after I gave him a tip, saying, “Thank you. I will be able to have supper tonight. Another one told me, “Thank you for this blessing.”

Keep on blessing us with your purposeful work, Epoch Times.

Kindness of Strangers

Submitted by: Holly Hamilton, Calgary

Something happened a while ago that showed how kindness benefits both the giver and the receiver.

My sister and I were walking down a fairly busy street in bad weather when we saw a very senior lady on a street corner who was looking for a certain address nearby.

She had been given explicate instructions on how to get to the destination by taking buses and transferring. The instructions given to her were long and rather complicated. We looked it up on our maps and it showed that it was the gas station across the street. She had written down all the instructions.

She showed the gas attendant what she was looking for and they didn’t have a clue what it meant. We went into Shoppers Drug Mart next door and she mentioned a reference about buying a gift card and to follow instructions on how to open an account. We asked her who wanted her to do this and she wouldn’t give any details except saying it was a “friend.”

I realized I had gone through something similar and ended up falling for a scam. We convinced her to just come to my house nearby and we would give her a ride home. My sister drove her there and she got into her house on her own.

One thing she had mentioned once we questioned her was that she had someone helping her with finances. This advisor wouldn’t have any idea what was going on with the suspicious instructions because the elderly woman was warned not to tell anyone.

My sister decided to phone police services to do a wellness check. They were able to contact her financial advisor to monitor her spending habits. The scammer phoned the woman when the police were there. Her advisor couldn’t have been aware of this because the scammer warned her she couldn’t tell anyone.

I felt this was divine intervention—finding her alone with no other pedestrians around. It is in our nature to help people and we wondered if another person would have stopped to help this ‘older’ woman with the complexity of the situation. How awful, trying to take money from a senior person.

For days, I thought about this, feeling so glad that we came across this vulnerable woman. Was it coincidence? I think not.

Elevating Others

Submitted by: Laurie

One day, I entered a crowded elevator at a hospital along with a young man who informed me that his wife had just given birth to a baby girl early that morning.

I said the usual congratulations, and then I added on a sudden whim, “I don’t know you from Adam, but something tells me that you are going to be a wonderful loving father to your baby girl. She is blessed to have you.” He replied that he would do his best. I then got off the elevator.

Later, I was getting back on the elevator to go home, when a woman I didn’t recognize approached me. She told me that she had overheard what I said to the man, and that after I left the crowded elevator, the other people there started talking to each other and saying what a kind thing it was to say to him.

She also the others on the elevator agreed they were now going to say something kind to someone else today, inspired by my gesture. She said everyone was smiling and talking about what they were going to do that day that was kind. You never know your your kindness will inspire other around you.

Paying It Forward

Submitted by: Debra Dolan, West Vancouver, B.C.

Kindness is something I’ve been fortunate to receive hundreds of times throughout my six-plus decades, and something I try to practise every day of my life, recognizing it is a core value. Not grand gestures; just the steady, human acts that keep us connected.

I give genuine compliments. I express thanks. I open doors for others. I stay in touch with the people I miss and love. These small habits have become my way of returning what has been given to me.

One act of kindness from the early 1980s has stayed with me more than any other. I was a young backpacker in Italy, travelling on a very tight budget during an extended trip through Europe.  Rome was a living museum I longed to see, but it was far beyond what I could afford.

From a youth hostel in Bracciano, I joined a “Rome in a Day” tour through American Express—14 hours of rushing between major sites, with barely enough time to absorb them.

I was the youngest person on the bus, the only single participant, and the only one carrying my backpack. It held everything I owned.

When the tour stopped for lunch in the Piazza del Popolo, I learned it wasn’t included in the package. The district was expensive, and the prices were impossible for me. I panicked. I simply couldn’t justify spending the equivalent of a week’s lodging on a single meal.

An elderly Japanese couple I had chatted with earlier—at Trevi Fountain and the Pantheon—noticed what was happening. Without hesitation, they insisted I be their guest. They were elegant, gentle, and kind.

They told me they were missing their granddaughter, who was studying in the United States, and that I reminded them of her. I never thought to ask for their address to send a note of thanks.  But on each of the three occasions I’ve travelled to Japan since, I’ve tried to do something extra for a stranger in their memory. I know that kindness travels and is easy to pass on.

Growing Joy

Submitted by: Greta Krusch

I visit a lonely 96-year-old female weekly to keep her company and cheer her up. One sunny afternoon, I pulled out the chairs and table from her shed, wiped them down, and we sat out on her porch.

While sitting there, she noticed the weeds growing up against her house wall and the sight bothered her. So I went out and pulled the unsightly weeds with my bare hands. What a difference it made!

The following week when I visited her, she commented on the difference the weeding made, and she offered to pay me. Of course I refused to take payment. In the meantime, her lawn is getting over-grown, so I’ll try to mow it on my next visit.

Mind you, I’m no youngster myself, coming up on 89 years on my next birthday in August next month.

The truth is, my visits give her such happiness that it pours over on myself, and I have a feeling of contentment and satisfaction as I wind my way home!

A Neighbour’s Lasting Gift

Submitted by: Darlene

Fifty-one years ago today my mother died. I was having coffee with my next-door neighbour, who had just moved in a month previously, when I received the call.

I had two little boys aged 4 and 1. My neighbour asked if my husband and the boys would fly with me to the funeral. I replied that my husband couldn’t go because many of his staff were on holidays but that I would like to go. She said, “I will look after your children during the day and your husband can take them at night.” And she did, for five days. She had five kids of her own, so she said they would help.

I have never forgotten this kindness, especially coming from someone I had only known for such a short time.