As we were walking toward the school, I noticed that some of the buses had already started to line up by the front. As we walked toward the school, I remembered that my bus was always the first one in the line of buses. I noticed a bus was standing in the exact same location as the bus I used to take. I mentioned to my mom that it may be the same bus driver from four years ago. As we walked by the bus, my mom and I smiled and waved to the driver, who kindly smiled and waved back at us.
Now you may be wondering why I would have any interest whatsoever saying hi to my bus driver from four years ago. I mean, it would be nice... but like that was four years ago and he has had many students before... so what does it matter to me?
Four years ago as a senior, I had an assignment for one of my classes. Every student had to do four nice things for four different people. This seemed like a nice idea... except we had to get signatures for the acts of kindness. I thought about who I should give my last gift to, and it wasn’t hard for me to decide to give it to my bus driver. He was always very nice and smiled every morning when I came onto the bus. He was a very quiet man but I noticed that he always made sure to say good morning to me. Just that simple gesture in the morning meant a lot to me, and so I figured my saying good morning to him every morning meant a lot to him as well.
So on one of my last days of school, right before getting off the bus, I made sure to hand him my gift. It was a chocolate bar with a letter attached to it that said, “thank you for all you do! I hope you have a nice day!”
I was not expecting his reaction. His face lit up as he looked up at me and shocked, asked, “this is for me?” He was so touched and thanked me for the gift. I could not get myself to ask for his signature. He was too happy about the gift and I genuinely was happy to give it to him. I felt that asking for his signature would do the exact opposite of what it was meant to do - it would make the receiver of the gift feel devalued. I couldn’t get myself to do it.
This was an experience that I recalled and it just blew me away all over again. How one small act of kindness could go such a long way and mean so much to a person. It was so easy for me to buy a chocolate bar and write a couple of words... yet the impact was on a much larger scale. Two years later he even asked my brother how I was doing! This was so sweet and shows a person really remembers those who take just a few minutes to do something kind.
I also thought it was crazy how we had to get signatures to do these 4 small acts of kindness. In the private school I had been in previously, we had to do 40 hours of community service to graduate! This was one of the many "culture shock" moments for me when I switched from my small private religious school to public school.
Anywho, on our way out of the school, we passed him again. He ended up remembering me, asking how I was doing and we had a nice conversation.