Small Mercies

A moment of kindness from a stranger two decades ago made me a more generous person

- Elizabeth Renzetti

IT WAS ONE of those moments every new parent dreads. My infant son was screaming as if I’d just dipped him in a bucket of battery acid. (Reader: I had not.) It felt as if he’d been screaming like that for years, though he was only two months old. Even worse, this was happening in public—I was sitting with my howling baby in the food court of a swank Los Angeles mall, despairing as other diners silently judged me while watching us over plates of pad Thai.

Until, that is, one woman—a complete stranger—did something that saved my sanity and taught me a lesson about kindness that lingers to this day. She walked over to me and put her hand on my shoulder. “This won’t last forever,” she said. “I know it doesn’t seem like it right now, but things will get better. He’ll stop crying. You’ll get some sleep.” And then this blessed spirit delivered by the mall gods disappeared down the escalator.