Extravagant Kindness

Due to the ordinary neglect one incurs over the course of a lifetime, I nurse a constant babbling in my heart. By day, when the speaker at an OCS info session stands with his back to my face, it whispers, “Why don’t you look at me?” By night, when I return to an empty bed and the memory of childhood heartbreak breaks in, it howls, “Why don’t you care?”

With such a chatter brewing for so long, I was surprised to hear a stranger’s kindness put my heart at ease. Eric was the handyman helping my mom spruce up our rental before we moved up north. During one of my visits home, he stopped by the house to give her a token of remembrance. Three wristwatches, each an artifact of his late mother’s collection, twinkled in his well-used hands as he displayed them for my mother to select a favorite. Then, seeing I was there too, Eric removed the watch most appropriate for my small limbs and gifted it to me instead.

It took several days for the extravagance of the gesture to hit me. Now, I wear my watch all the time. To him I was unknown yet somehow deemed worthy of affection. We spent hours together in the final week I lived in that house, packaging paintings, sharing stories. Despite crossing paths for only a moment, Eric and I were able to build a friendship from nothing, all thanks to the gift of a watch and, with it, the unspoken assurance: “To me, you matter.”

How many times today have I failed to make eye contact with a passing friend? How many times this week have I sat next to a stranger in the dining hall and failed to ask his name? How often have I sent an email to a fellow club member without including some sentiment intimating that I care whether she lives or dies in addition to whether she has completed her assignment?

Neglect is a sin greater than incompetence, even and especially at Harvard. When it is applied to human relationships, we don’t miss deadlines, we miss lives. People we care about but only used to know, people we have never met but could love more dearly than anyone else in this world: These are the casualties of failing to reach out to those we are not in the habit of giving our time.

By no means do I expect you to swing by Shoenhof’s on your way home to pick up a beautifully illustrated children’s book for your favorite Crimson columnist. Still, there is something to be said for the boldness of Eric’s gesture.

If you are looking to open your hearts to those currently on its periphery, consider starting with something over the top. Walk back to Pfoho for lunch with your quadded classmate. Buy your boyfriend’s roommate a new pair of snow shoes. Offer the pre-med you just met at Brain Break a companion as she charges through the rest of her all-nighter. Banish the fearful tumult of an unnurtured soul to the obscurity where it belongs. Love boldly.

Veronica S. Wickline ’16, an ancient history concentrator, lives in Kirkland House. Her column usually appears on alternate Mondays.