Be Kind To Everyone

          This maxim is and continues to be a burden through my life. Bring soup to the sick. Bring a present for a crippled child. Do a flower arrangement for someone in the hospital. Invite a lonely person to dinner. Feed a lost cat. Nurse a sick animal back to health. A constant stream of unending tasks to perform for friend, relative, animal, or foe.

Papa happily used my time and energy to relieve the needy. I vividly remember Frances Affinito. She lived with her family of seven over a blacksmith’s shop where horses had their hoofs shod. Papa owned the building and rented them the apartment. They were a simple, wonderful, Italian, devout Catholic family. Church attendance was more important to their existence than eating. A baby was born every year. Her mother was overworked, thin, and wan.

Frances, the oldest child, was pale, drawn, and sickly. You felt nothing but pity for her. She was too weak to attend school. She helped her mother clean and cook. Papa took the responsibility of getting Frances to a doctor to diagnose her condition. He worried about her and constantly talked to Mama about ways to help the family.

Dr. Hargrave found that Frances had tuberculosis and everyone panicked. Papa arranged for her to go to Saranac Lake in the Adirondacks. There she would have clean air, a staff of doctors trained to cure the disease and food to give her strength instead of pasta and salami.

Mrs. Affinito missed Frances terribly. After all, she had been her built-in day worker. Papa begged Mama to let me, her baby, do the shopping and help with the light cleaning. Mama was appalled but Papa the gentle persuader won. I carried out the duties two times a week from after school until dinner for what seemed an endless incarceration. Papa agreed I must come home to do my homework. I was so resentful but I never uttered a word of anger. My teeth were clenched, I broke things in her house, but Mrs. Affinito loved the help I gave.

Frances was dreadfully lonesome in Saranac Lake and Papa felt it his responsibility to correct that. The family spoke to her on the phone but sobs were more frequent than words. Papa finally called the doctor to ask about Frances’ health and the length of time she would need to recover. The doctor made an estimated guess of two months for her cure. He told the Affinito family and Frances. They were dissolved in tears.

What solution could Papa dream up now? He called the family to a conference. He said, “If once a week, someone visited Frances and she had food from home that was familiar and faces she knew, the time would pass more quickly. They tried that and to everyone’s delight, it succeeded. No one was happier than me to see Frances back.

This is only one example of the endless tasks I performed for others. Today, free of the chains, I find it is a blessing in disguise. My greatest joy and success now is finding two people who will mutually benefit each other, to achieve the goals they set- a dress designer (Koos), a potter (Peter Shire), an artist (Olin Orr), two women documentary filmmakers. Each has broadened his horizon and added a new dimension to his art. All of this is because of my adherence to Papa’s early direction.