A totally delightful man named Sam is in charge of maintenance and a million other things in my Chicago apartment building — including, especially, making every dog’s day.

Sam keeps an inventory of dog treats in the front pocket of his work shirt, and every time I’m on an elevator with him and a dog, he places a treat on the floor for the dog to gobble up joyfully. If we happen to arrive at the dog’s floor before every last crumb is spoken for, Sam holds the elevator button to keep the doors from opening so the dog can finish his snack.

“We’re not in any hurry,” he’ll tell the dog.

Sometimes some of us are in a hurry.

Sometimes some of us need our hurrying to be interrupted by several seconds of kindness.

Sometimes several seconds of kindness remind us that we share this big, beautiful world with other people (and dogs) and letting their lives spill over into our life is actually the whole entire point.

Sam’s dog treat ritual gets me every time. The thought, the execution, the tiny shift in the air after you’ve watched someone be kind and someone else receive that kindness. The last time it happened, I wrote about it in my Balancing Act Facebook group and asked if anyone else had stories about humans doing small, kind things recently. I’m craving those stories right now. I think a lot of us are.

Stories poured forth.

Cindy Vail Mundell wrote about going out to breakfast and watching a waitress patiently read the entire menu, prices included, out loud to an elderly couple who had a hard time making out the words.

“When we were leaving, I told her she was wonderful,” Mundell wrote. “The world needs more like her.”

Beth Cooper-Zobott wrote about a woman who walks around the Metra station in northwest suburban Bartlett, Illinois, every morning picking up trash and checking in on a man who spends his days alone at the station, taking special care to help him survive extreme weather.

Peggy Gilbertsen planted a no-grass flower garden in the front yard of her Far South Side Chicago home and every once in a while someone writes a message on her sidewalk in chalk, thanking her for the beauty.

“I never had visitors to my yard when it was grass,” Gilbertsen wrote. “It truly makes me tear up.”

Moira Leen Savel serves as a grief support volunteer. She recently facilitated a group for adult children grieving the loss of a parent, and at the close of their six weeks together some of the group members handed small gifts to the other group members and the volunteers.

“For someone experiencing profound grief to step out of their emotions and think of others in a tangible way is incredibly moving,” Savel wrote.

Andrea Mandelkern Weber wrote about trying to make a tight connection at an airport when a stranger, upon hearing her plight, sprung into action.

He said, ‘Don't worry. I know this airport. I'll run with you and show you exactly where to go,’” Weber wrote. “Let’s just say he ran a bit faster than me and held the tram doors open for me so I'd make his same tram. Then talked me through exactly which stop I get off at, which way I turn. Did I mention that he was easily in his late 20s/early 30s and I am not!”

Mandy Mills Connelly and her adult children had to put their 22-year-old cat down earlier this month. When they went to pay the bill, a stranger had paid it for them.

Joanne Bieschke and her husband stopped for lunch at Main Street Kitchen, a little sandwich shop in Stoughton, Wisconsin, and thought they lost her husband’s wedding ring there. They drove back and explained the situation to the owner, who insisted on looking through the garbage. She even promised to look through all of the garbage after she closed for the day.

“She contacted me the next day to let us know she had not found it,” Bieschke wrote. “I thought it was so nice of her to go to all that trouble. Not to mention the yuck factor. That’s a place we’ll always visit when we’re there.”

(The ring eventually showed up elsewhere.)

My favorite story of all — not just on that Facebook thread, but possibly ever — came from Jennifer Trannon.

“My dad has dementia,” Trannon wrote. “This past January when we had a very snowy day, he came downstairs dressed for the snow and told my sister they had to leave or they’d be late for the football game. My sister played along and FaceTimed me. My dad believed we were playing a football game against another family.”

They’ve never, not even once, played a football game against another family. That didn’t stop Trannon’s dad from telling her which family members were playing and in what positions.

Her sister drove her dad to a park in west suburban Elmhurst, Illinois.

“They sat in the car and waited and waited, and he stared out the window.” Trannon wrote. “Finally a guy from the park district came over and asked if they were OK. My dad explained why they were there. Without missing a beat, the guy told my dad the other team had already come, that they heard about our O-line and forfeited. My dad was elated and told my sister it was time to go home.”

Trannon’s dad called her when he got home to explain what happened.

“I said, ‘Well, we do have one helluva O-line,’” Trannon wrote. “Went back to try to find the guy to thank him but couldn't track him down. It was phenomenal.”

Kindness always is.

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