Kindness Matters

 

Carey is a sucker for that two-word phrase printed on t-shirts, kitchen towels, and wooden home decor signs. But yesterday she turned it into more than just words. When we were walking the dog in the late afternoon near the Mohawk Hudson Bike Trail, we saw a young man on a loaded bicycle who had pulled over and was consulting his phone. I'm always curious when I see bikers with panniers and wonder where they started their ride and where they're going, so I walked the dog over to meet him and ask. He looked at me when I spoke, then pointed at his phone and started typing. "My name is Tyler and I'm deaf." We then had a short conversation using the Notes app on his phone. My curiosity was satisfied, but Kind Carey was now practicing her basic American Sign Language and about five minutes later had invited Tyler to have dinner with us and sleep in our guest bed! I was slightly miffed that we didn't discuss that first, but as usual, her kindness prevailed over my cynicism, and what was I going to do, tell Tyler my wife misspoke and we can't actually feed him dinner? Truthfully, it was the overnight part I was nervous about -- like, I don't know this guy, what's to prevent him from leaving in the middle of the night with whatever valuables he thinks he can carry out of my house? Anyway. We shared our phone number, then finished our dog walk while he biked to ShopRite to replenish his snack supply. He said he would text us when he was done shopping. Long story just a little bit longer.... he probably thought about it as much as I was and texted us back saying he'd love to come to dinner, but that he needed to average 95 miles a day to make it to NYC by Monday, so he didn't think he should stay the night. And so that's how we ended up cooking pork chops, green beans and sauerkraut for a young man biking from Buffalo to NYC in six days. He is 22-years-old and is on a "leave of absence" from RIT. Originally from NYC. Unclear if/when he's going to finish his degree. One of his typed sentences to me was: "No degree needed for success." Here's the transcript of our conversation over dinner, for those who are interested.