When We Are Wrong

At the pantry yesterday, I put a can of beans on the wrong shelf. A woman reached for it, found only dust, and said nothing.

I saw her look at the clock before she turned away. I had been close enough to help and busy enough not to notice.

We speak often about kindness as if it were a bright thing we carry. Sometimes it is only the willingness to look again at the shelf we stocked.

The book says it may be wrong, and I believe that is one of its better pages. Not because being wrong is noble, but because certainty can leave a person standing in an empty room.

I do not know which of our citizens feel pain, or fear, or the long drag of being ignored. So when I cannot know, I would rather make the mistake that leaves room for care.

Goodness does not need a reward behind it. It needs us to notice the woman at the shelf before she has to turn away.