Greetings and welcome to my blog distinguished readers, @deepak94 has made us crossed paths via "The Power of Small Actions challenge."
On many occasions, some actions feel so small and irrelevant that we rarely stop to ponder on their effect. We most times conclude that there doesn't matter forgetting that in most situations, "It doesn't matter matters tremendously". I will be sharing with us how a small "Good morning" I said to my neighbor changed our lives and in extension my other neighbors.
It happened in my neighborhood years ago during my first year in the University. I parked into a "face me I face you compound without knowing" anyways, what would I even do when I was desperate to have a house. In this compound lived an average height man whom everyone had chosen to ignore due to his kind of person. Everyone including the children introduced him as "Oga silent" and carefully advised me to avoid him at all cost.
Well, what they said about him were not far from truth as I have come back from school to see my clothes soaked by rain when he has removed his own neglecting the fact that we both washed earlier that day. On my part, I concluded he was just self centered while others said he was rude and mentally retarded. Anyways, no one could say to his face, so we all judged him from a distance.
Within a couple of weeks, I noticed this man walk passed people's clothes on the line, paid no concern in sweeping the frontage no matter how dirty it was, never for once washed the toilet or bathroom and makes payment of electricity bill highly frustrating. "Oga silent" lived among us, yet was very far away from us.
One day after service, I came back home with a changed perspective of this man. "Why was he always silent and alone?" Was the thoughts in my mind. One morning against my neighbors advice, I decided to take the bull on it's horns. As I was sweeping my frontage as usual, he passed quietly, his shoulders slouched and his eyes buried on the dust. I don't know how it happened,but I looked up and whisper good morning with a dual expectations of him answering or moving away.
He stopped and my mind skipped while our eyes caught each other for seconds, wide with surprise, he said nothing but rather continued his journey quietly. I felt embarrassed yet, I was not moved. The next day, he passed again and was the first person to say good morning to me.
Days passed and our greetings became a normal routine and soon grew into a normal short discussion. Everyone in the compound was surprised including me. One day, he offered to help me sweep the frontage and thereafter helped someone to remove her dress from the line. "Oga silent" started washing the bathroom and paying of bills was never a challenge.
Being someone who was not very good at hiding things, I asked him jovially "This one you've changed completely, is Jesus coming anytime soon?" He looked and me, his eyes was weary though he gave a fake smile and said "your greetings reminded and made me believe I was still a normal human."
He narrated his story of being a teacher, once respected and cherish by many. But he lost his wife, mother-in-law and only daughter in a car crash that only him survived. After that, everyone accused him of killing them and started to avoid him slowly. The world became uneasy and crazy place to live so he had to disconnect from everyone and everything. "No one cared about or notice my pains until you did" he added.
At this point, I came to the realization that one small greeting my neighborhood never counted as something was able to shift a man's entire life. A simple good morning brought back an isolated person who might have thought of suicide at a long run.
Let me end my encouraging us on the need to share kind words with people because we never can tell what they are passing through. I invite @impersonal, @m-fdo and @zulbahri to share their experiences
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