The Myth of Traveling Kindness

The Myth of Traveling Kindness

By Francesca Jahns

This story needs a bit of setup. We took a day trip to Agios Nikolaos and were eating lunch at a restaurant by the beach. While we were waiting for our food to arrive, an elderly Greek woman approached our table and, in Greek, began offering items for sale. Francesca and I both felt conflicted. On one hand, we were inclined not to give her any money because we already donate to many charities throughout the year, we worried about the possibility of the money being misused, and we were traveling on a tight budget.

On the other hand, we wanted to set an example for our kids about how to treat people who are less fortunate. In the end, we decided not to give the woman anything, but we had a discussion with the kids about it at the table. They shared their feelings and thoughts, and it turned into a meaningful conversation.

The next day, Francesca, as part of a school assignment, tasked the kids (and the adults, as we always do the assignments too) with creating their own myth. We had visited the Knossos Palace ruins the day before, which inspired this activity as the birthplace of the Theseus and the Minotaur myth. Francesca wrote a myth based on the encounter with the elderly woman in Agios Nikolaos. It was so moving that I decided to include it as a bonus travel story this month.

—Dan Jahns

They brainstormed ways to help those who were less fortunate. One child suggested inviting her and her children to their home. Another planned to donate bags of clothing. As they discussed these ideas, Spyros, the God of Kindness, watched from above and smiled. He decided to see what the family would do if they encountered the woman again.

The following week, they saw the woman in town, this time accompanied by her four children. They were dressed in tattered clothing and looked very frail. The voyagers rushed to her side, offering food, water, and clothing. They invited the family to their home to shower, change into new clothes, share a meal, and sleep in warm beds.

As the voyagers listened to the woman’s story, they learned that she and her children were also voyagers. They had been traveling for months when they suddenly lost all their money. They were struggling to find a way back home. The family helped her find a bus that would take her and her children home the next morning.

That night, Spyros, the God of Kindness, visited the voyagers’ home. He saw the woman and her children sleeping soundly and marveled at the friendship that kindness had created. He cast a spell from the heavens: any act of kindness shown to one person would create a chain reaction of kindness that would travel across the world.

Sure enough, when the woman and her family left, they continued the cycle of kindness. One of her children gave up his seat on the bus for an elderly woman. When the elderly woman got off the bus, she stopped a toddler from wandering into the street, to the immense gratitude of the toddler’s parents. Those parents then helped a man at a store who couldn’t afford flowers for his wife. Later, that man gave the flowers he had purchased to a couple getting married who had no flowers for their ceremony.

Years later, that couple had a child and named her Iris, after the flowers the man had so generously donated. And so it was that Spyros, the God of Kindness, ensured that acts of kindness traveled like voyagers, creating a ripple effect that reached far and wide.