The Kindness I Took Years to Understand.
I first found this poem, Kindness by Naomi Shihab Nye, because Emma Thompson once recited it back then.
Which is, honestly, very on brand for me.
Some people discover poems through literature classes. Some through heartbreak. I discovered this one because Emma Thompson read it, and because I have a serious, unquestionable respect for that woman’s taste, I thought, if she finds this important, perhaps I should keep it somewhere too.
At that time, I did not fully understand the poem.
I knew it was beautiful. I knew it had weight. But it did not enter me yet. Maybe my English was not strong enough. Maybe I was too young. Or maybe life had not translated it for me.
So I kept it. For years.
“Before you know what kindness really is”
That is how the poem begins.
Not with comfort. Not with sweetness. Not with a gentle reminder to be nice to people and smile more often, as if kindness is just a decorative personality trait.
It begins like a warning.
Before you know kindness, something must happen to you first. Which is already quite rude.
I wanted kindness to be simple. Something manageable. Something like helping someone carry things, replying politely, giving food, forgiving people before bedtime, and generally behaving like a decent human being with functioning manners.
But Naomi Shihab Nye does not let kindness remain that easy.
That line used to sound poetic to me. Now, unfortunately, it sounds accurate.
Because at this age, I finally realised that kindness is easy when it costs nothing. It is easy to be kind when the person is lovable, grateful, innocent, and preferably not someone who has annoyed your soul in any significant way.
But kindness, as I learned in a hard way, becomes different when it costs you something.
Your advantage.
Your chance.
Your pride.
Your carefully gathered effort.
Your small, private, dreamed future.
Sometimes kindness asks you to loosen your grip on something you wanted so badly. Not because it did not matter. It mattered. That is the painful part. It mattered enough that losing it felt like watching one version of your future dissolve quietly in front of you.
A weakened broth. That image stayed with me.
Because some losses are not dramatic. They do not arrive with thunder. They do not burn the whole house down. They simply thin something inside you.
A future you imagined becomes less solid.
A hope you held becomes less yours.
A plan you quietly built loses its shape.
And from the outside, it may look small. Almost nothing. But inside, you know something has dissolved.
I think I finally understood the poem one day when I did something kind to someone I did not particularly like. Yes, this is not exactly rare as we move through adulthood.
Enemy sounds dramatic. Competitor sounds too polished. Someone I disliked is probably honest enough for this write-up.
Helping that person meant I would lose something. Something I had worked for. Something I had gathered. Something that mattered to me.
And the most inconvenient part was this.
That person needed it.
Or maybe that person deserved it.
Which was deeply annoying to my ego.
Because it is easier to dislike people when we make them 'all black'. Villain. Rival. Problem. Threat.
But real people are 'grey'.
Sometimes the person you dislike is also struggling. Sometimes the person you see as a competitor is also carrying fear. Sometimes the person you wanted to defeat is also praying for a door to open.
The poem also gives us images of travellers. Ordinary people on the road, dying. People carrying food, hunger, bodies, bags, and unfinished lives.
And perhaps that is where kindness begins. Empathy.
When you realise everyone is carrying something.
Some people carry grief. Some carry debt. Some carry family expectations. Some carry one last chance. Some carry a dream that looks very similar to yours, but with a harder road attached to it.
That part humbles me.
Because sometimes we think our longing is special. Our pain is special. Our struggle is the main character of the universe.
But then you see someone else, and you realise, perhaps they want the same things too. Perhaps they are also tired. Perhaps they are also afraid. Perhaps their life has tested them in ways mine has not.
Of course, that does not cancel my pain. It does not make my loss nothing.
But it puts my ego in its proper seat. A quiet seat.
Preferably at the back.
This, I think, is the heart of the poem.
Kindness is not merely about being nice. It is not merely manners. It is not merely politeness. It is not merely smiling sweetly while your inner self is rebelling.
The poem speaks of kindness as something deep.
And before one's kindness becomes deep, sorrow must have gone there first.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth."
I read somewhere that Naomi Shihab Nye sees sorrow as the “other deepest thing” because true compassion is often born from personal loss and shared vulnerability. We have to know suffering, at least in some form, before we can genuinely understand the fragility of life and the necessity of empathy.
And I think that makes sense. What Emma Thompson said also makes sense.
“It’s unfortunate, and I really wish I wouldn’t have to say this, but I really like human beings who have suffered. They’re kinder.”
Because sorrow (or suffering) does not simply hurt you. It makes you aware.
It removes the illusion that people are simple. It teaches you that everyone is breakable. Everyone is carrying something. Everyone has a hidden place where life has touched them too sharply.
Maybe the analogy of sorrow is like walking through a dark room and hitting your knee on every piece of furniture. Painful, yes. Deeply unnecessary, yes. But after that, when someone else enters the same room, you know where the sharp edges are.
You cannot pretend you do not.
You either warn them, guide them, or at least stop yourself from pushing them further in.
That, perhaps, is again empathy.
Not because sorrow automatically makes people kind. It does not. Some people suffer and become softer. Some suffer and become sharper. Pain is not always a moral upgrade.
But sorrow can deepen empathy if the heart does not harden.
Because when you have known the bottom, you become more careful about pushing someone else there.
Not because you suddenly love them.
Not because you trust them.
Not because you want to become best friends and share matching mugs.
But because you recognise pain as pain.
And that recognition changes what you are willing to do.
Or what you are no longer willing to do.
Maybe that was why I helped that person.
Not because I was noble.
Please.
But because I knew enough sorrow to be afraid of causing it.
I knew enough loss to recognise another person’s need.
I knew enough of my own weakness to understand that being human is already difficult. I did not need to make it harder for her just because I could.
I love that the poem ends with something so ordinary.
Shoes.
After all the loss, sorrow, and dissolved futures, kindness does not arrive as a grand reward. It does not return everything. It does not fix the whole story.
It ties your shoes.
It helps you continue.
And perhaps that is the part I understand most now.
Kindness is not only something you give to others. Sometimes it becomes the thing that keeps you walking too.
After loss, after disappointment, after doing the right thing with a heart that is still protesting quietly, kindness becomes a kind of strength.
Especially when the intention is no longer about winning, being seen, being thanked, or being proven right.
I love this ending because kindness is no longer just an act.
It becomes a companion.
After all the loss, sorrow, dissolved futures, and the quiet humiliation of doing the right thing when your ego is still filing a complaint, kindness does not arrive as a grand reward. It does not return everything. It does not fix the whole story.
It simply stays.
Like a shadow. Or a friend. That's on us.
With or without ridha.
And perhaps that is the part I understand most now.
Maybe the intention is simply, Ya Allah, this hurts, but let it count with You. And please, make life kind to me as I have tried to be good to others.
And there is strength in that.
A quiet one.
The strength of knowing that even if something was lost, the act itself was not wasted.
The strength of knowing Allah saw the part nobody else saw.
The hesitation.
The swallowed pride.
The jealousy you fought.
The bitterness you refused to feed.
The help you gave, even when your heart was not performing saintliness particularly well.
Maybe kindness ties your shoes because it reminds you that you can still walk without becoming cruel.
You can lose and still remain gentle. You can be hurt and still choose mercy.
You can continue, not because everything makes sense, but because your intention gives your steps direction.
I used to think I kept this poem because Emma Thompson loved it.
Now I think the poem kept me.
Quietly.
Patiently.
Waiting until life gave me the exact situation I needed to understand it.
Not under a tree. Not with sunlight touching my face. Nothing aesthetic like that.
Or sudden 'spiritual enlightenment' like Siddhartha Gautama.
Just an ugly human feeling.
A choice I did not want to make.
A loss I did not want to accept.
And yet, there it was.
Kindness.
Not soft. Not easy. Not performative.
But real. The grown-up kind.
The kind that remains after pride has been humbled, sorrow has done its work, and the heart still chooses mercy.
Maybe I lost the thing.
But I did not lose myself.
And perhaps that is kindness too.
Alhamdulillah 'ala kulli haal.
اللَّهُمَّ أْجُرْنِي فِي مُصِيبَتِي، وَأَخْلِفْ لِي خَيْرًا مِنْهَا
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