Has anyone else noticed a little more civility, a little more kindness, since Sept. 11? Not big things, just small gestures like a little more courtesy on the roads, more cheerful help from a clerk, a door more gladly held open or more sincerity in the smile of a stranger.
It’s almost as if the stranger we’re interacting with may have lost someone close, been painfully reminded of a personal tragedy or may simply be taking the recent events especially hard and crying when no one is around.
Yet strangers experience pain and loss every day. When we flip a driver the bird or cuss out a difficult customer service rep, we have no idea if they buried a relative the previous week.
Is it self-delusion to try to recognize gain from enormous loss? Maybe. But it’s definitely more real than the thought of 5,000 deaths in 18 minutes, it’s a lot less work than lashing out at a faceless enemy and it’s something useful to explore with a child when words are hard to come by.
