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The other day we drove about 130 miles (208 kilometers) north to have lunch with old friends from our New Jersey days.
During the long ride, out of curiosity, I looked up interesting epitaphs of famous people to read aloud to share with my husband who did the driving. He taught me the Latin words written on Christopher Wren's (1632-1723) burial site in St. Paul's Cathedral: "Si monumentum requiris circumspice," which means "If you seek my monument, look around you." Wren was the designer of this well-known church and he cleverly adopted it as his own memorial.
Why the sudden interest in epitaphs? I was intrigued as I read the news of the recent death of actor James Gandolfini (1961-2013), best known for his role as the mobster boss in the TV series "The Sopranos."
This Tony award winning actor inspired many eulogies. I was pleasantly surprised to read two adjectives "kind and generous" that dominated in the tributes people were paying to the late actor ― particularly as they are not qualities that he portrayed in his roles as an actor.
I was truly impressed because I know so well that it is not an easy thing to be consistently kind and generous. I would regard myself a successful person with a life well lived if when I am gone, the words picked to describe me are "kind and generous".
What is kindness? For me kindness means a caring and considerate heart with compassion, tenderness, deep understanding, patience and loving concerns for others. Mark Twain pointed out that kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.
How do we define generosity? A generous person has a big heart and a charitable attitude and is always ready to give and eager to provide for those in need with her own time, money and energy. She is a selfless and attentive person who sees good things in others and treats everyone with respect and politeness.
Among the people I personally know, five people come to mind for their remarkable kindness and generosity:
As a college student, J used to go to a rough part of Harlem, N.Y., to teach reading to unwed high school dropouts. She didn't seem to mind going to an unsafe area of Manhattan to do this service. Later on, she went to live in Hong Kong and for a while had a live-in maid from the Philippines.
This helper experienced a tragedy that goes beyond grief when her son died after a motorcycle accident. J was already in N.Y. when she heard about the sad ending of a young man; however, she wired money with a very warm letter to comfort this person for whom she no longer was under any obligation to do anything.
Every week O used to visit a shelter for battered women to read to their children in her high school days. When she became a lawyer, she volunteered to take a pro-bono case at her law firm to prove the innocence of one particular prisoner who'd already served 20 years for the murder he didn't commit. This was done not as her part of already overloaded work. She went out of her way to help this powerless, voiceless man.
A and his wife L are both Hong Kong professionals with Ivy League education who are very successful in their respective fields, winning many awards and recognition. However, they decided as a couple to live a life of giving. Their giving happens to be for the homeless. Even now they pay for two rooms in Hong Kong to house homeless people who congregate at the Star Ferry terminal in the Kowloon side.
Among the homeless who benefited from the shelter, a young African man fortunately received a full scholarship to a Korean theological seminary. For the past four years, this couple has been helping the seminarian with monthly living allowance as the scholarship doesn't include day-to-day expenses.
Another friend, T, is also involved in the homeless ministry. Even though she is a Hong Kong national, she has felt the calling to support a homeless program in Seoul that my brother-in-law is running with my sister behind Seoul Station. She pledges annually a large amount of money and follows through her covenant to host the thrice a year retreat that takes care of two national holidays (Lunar New Year and Chuseok) and a summer session for more than 150 people each time.
What about us ordinary people? Can we all be kind and generous? Sure we can. As George Washington Carver reminded us, "How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because, some day in life, you will have been all these."
Let us not be shy about being kind and generous every day. That's a life worth living.
Hyon O'Brien is a former reference librarian now living in the United States. She can be reached at hyonobrien@gmail.com.
