The kindest thing I have ever experienced is the collective presence of certain people.

The accumulation of small, daily kindnesses often carries more weight than a single, isolated grand gesture.

There have been grand gestures, of course. Beautiful ones. The sort that arrive with enough significance to announce themselves and earn a permanent place in memory.

But I am highly suspicious that kindness is best measured by its size.

Sometimes it is packaged so ordinarily that, if we aren’t paying attention, we’ll step right over it.

Tiny things.

If you listed them individually on paper, they might look rather unimpressive. But somehow, our parents, our friends, our spouses, our siblings, and our children spend years quietly stacking them up.

Even people we only pass by for a brief moment can leave behind a little speck of kindness.

And that is exactly why I can’t answer this question with just one tidy story. To crown a “winner” would mean separating one sweet act from thousands of others.

Kindness doesn’t compete against itself.

So why would I start now when I have The Absolutely Enormous Pile of Lovely Things?