Have you ever attended a wedding reception that includes a deejay who plays the game “who’s been married longest?”

For this game the DJ asks all married couples to come to the dance floor and then begins a slow song. As everyone dances, the DJ announces that anyone who has been married less than an hour, please sit down. Laughter follows as the bride and groom leave the floor. The DJ continues this announcement, upping the number of years a couple has been married, until there is only one couple on the floor – the longest married one. Dan and I always win this game. The DJ asks us to offer the secret of a long marriage, and we always say, “Be kind to each other.” In the bloom of the just married, the couple thinks, “Yes, yes, we will always be kind to each other.”

Married less than an hour, the couple have yet to experience the daily rush and tumble of daily life.  They do not have a history. They don’t understand day-to-day kindness. Yet. So, let’s talk about kindness and lessons gleamed.

As a relationship gains time, one might experience irritation over some little habit the loved one has. The irritation might not be from a habit, perhaps it comes from a real or imagined slight or insult from the past, something one is having trouble releasing. On a day when you didn’t sleep well, or work is worrying, or you have been ill, you mention the slight or the irritation. You do this again and again. It seems to appear frequently in arguments and sometimes escalates the problem. It has become a cycle, a cycle I finally broke by recognizing that an irritation is just a small thing and an insult, or a slight is something from the past and should remain in the past. Practicing kindness requires one to, as singer/songwriter Cowboy Mouth says in the chorus his song “Jenny says, ‘Let it go, let it go, let it go.’”

Kindness requires respect. When I taught school, I told new groups of students that I had one rule, remain respectful. I would respect them; they would respect me. That sounds fairly easy, but as life continues and events good and bad come one’s way, respect can fall by the wayside. When immersed in the minutia of the day-to-day, it is perilously easy to become impatient, irritable and dismissive. Looking at one’s behavior in an analytical manner is difficult but can bring realization. “I’m respectful, of course I am. I am not dismissive. I’m … ?” It is difficult to face one’s failures.

Kindness requires taking care of a loved one. This is not the care one gives to a child; this is a mindfulness of the other person’s needs, even at the inconvenience to ourselves. During my recent battle with RSV, I moved to our guest room so Dan could get some sleep.  Often at 12 o’clock 1 o’clock, 2 o’clock in the morning I would wake up coughing. Despite trying to muffle my coughs, Dan would have an ear out and would appear at the door, a soothing cup of hot water, lemon and honey in hand. He knew it is a drink I love and one that eases my cough. It was a kindness, an act of love, a hug, a loving assurance that I was being watched over, cared for, loved.

Kindness is a form of love that requires, among many other things, respect, the ability to let things go, the thoughtfulness of caring for the other. It is a lifetime commitment, not daunting, but a commitment that is fulfilling and making life beautiful.

I Corinthians 13:408

New American Standard Bible

4 Love is patient, love is kind, it is not jealous; love does not brag, it is not arrogant. 5 It does not act disgracefully, it does not seek its own benefit; it is not provoked, does not keep an account of a wrong suffered, 6 it does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7 it [a]keeps every confidence, it believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never fails

Cindy Arp, teacher/librarian, retired from Knox County Schools. She and husband Dan live in Heiskell.