Surplus of Kindness

The fluorescent lights hummed their monotonous song, casting a clinical glow across the daycare’s administrative office. But some spaces pulse with a heartbeat beyond the mundane—and this was one of them.

I’d been working at Shepherds Daycare long enough to understand that compassion isn’t about grand gestures. It’s about the small moments that slip between the cracks of everyday existence. Mitchell was different. Not in the way most would immediately recognize—his adult frame housing a spirit that danced to a rhythm all its own.

The pamper order came in that morning—standard procedure, or so it seemed. But nothing about Mitchell was standard. When I saw the regular shipment, something inside me stirred. A whisper. A nudge from whatever cosmic consciousness guides our most human impulses.

I doubled the order.

Not out of pity. Never pity. Pity is a cold thing, a distant cousin to true understanding. This was something else entirely. This was recognition. This was seeing beyond the surface, into the raw, unfiltered essence of human dignity.

Each package I carefully placed in the supply closet was more than just a diaper. It was a statement. A promise. A small rebellion against the world’s tendency to overlook those who move differently, who experience life through a lens most cannot comprehend.

Mitchell’s eyes when he saw the packages—God, those eyes. They weren’t the eyes of someone limited. They were windows to a pure, unfiltered joy that most of us lose somewhere between childhood and the relentless march of adulthood. His smile wasn’t just a smile. It was a universe of emotion, unbound by the typical constraints of communication.

I wrote his name on each package. Carefully. Deliberately. Each letter a testament to his individuality. Not just a label, but an acknowledgment. You are here. You matter. You are seen.

The supply closet became something more than a storage space that day. It transformed into a sanctuary of human connection—a place where the boundaries between caregiver and care-receiver dissolved into something achingly, beautifully profound.

Some days, compassion looks like extra diapers and a name carefully written.

Some days, it looks like understanding.

— A Keeper of Small Mercies, JJ