What’s the kindest thing someone has ever done for you?
Every Sunday my grandmother arrived with lollies. There were enough for all of us, and they were divided with great precision. At the time, that was probably what I noticed most. Grandmother had arrived. Grandmother had lollies. Life was good.
I understood much less about everything else she was bringing with her. She had not had an easy life. During the Depression years she and my grandfather moved from state to state whenever there was the whisper of a business opportunity. They lived in modest rentals, spare rooms, even sheds, and it took them twenty years of marriage before they were able to buy a modest home of their own.
At one point my grandfather sent word from interstate that the marriage was over and that she should not come back. She came back. She refused to give up on the marriage.
Perhaps that helps explain why family came to mean so much to her. She spoke to my mother on the phone every day. We visited her every Friday night. She came to us every Sunday. There was a rhythm to it, a dependable pattern of presence.
When I was a teenager, she bought a historic home in Sydney’s inner west that had been converted into apartments. She needed someone to look after the grounds, so every week or two I would go over, mow the lawns and do whatever other jobs needed doing. Then we would often play golf. She had decided to take up the game in her sixties.
At the time, none of this struck me as extraordinary. The lollies were lollies. Friday nights were Friday nights. Sundays were Sundays. Mowing lawns was a job. Golf was golf. Only much later did I understand what she had been giving us.
Some of the greatest kindnesses in our lives are almost invisible while we are receiving them. They become part of the furniture of childhood, so familiar that we assume they will always be there. We notice the sweets, the outings, the small gifts. We do not yet have the language to recognise constancy.
My grandmother had known instability, scarcity and the possibility of abandonment. Yet she became, for the rest of us, a remarkably steady presence. Perhaps that was her great kindness.
Not one dramatic act. Rather, she created a platform of kindness beneath our family: phone calls, visits, gifts, meals, work, golf, attention, presence. Basically, a pattern of living.
We stood on it without noticing. Only years later do you look down and realise how much of your sense of belonging was built there.
The Afterword 
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