Sometimes, we tend to forget that actions have consequences and relegate our own to the dust bin of irrelevance or oblivion. A while back, I discovered this is not necessarily true, and that our actions can have surprising consequences.
About 20 years ago, a lady I knew adopted a Russian child. She brought the 6-year old to my home, to a party we were hosting. At the time, this new Mother was thrilled with her new status, but trepidatious, because there was an enormous chasm between her and her son: they just could not communicate. The boy was shy and withdrawn, and she ached to hold him and comfort him, but it was oh so very difficult to penetrate the boy’s world.
I happened to have a lot of children’s stories in Russian (including Tolstoy’s stories), because I once had had BIG dreams that my sons would learn the language, having lived in Moscow. It didn’t work out. None were interested. To my chagrin, they preferred the romance languages.
Listening to this lady’s plight, I remembered my precious little Russian children’s stories, and, without hesitating, I gathered all these books and gave them to her. Before doing so, I chatted with the little boy in my elementary Russian and his eyes lit up. Seeing that flicker of recognition in that boy’s eyes made me think that, maybe, these stories would help a little Russian boy lost in America.
Fast forward 7 years. I return to the US after many years abroad, and I meet a strapping young 15-16 year old young man accompanied by his Mother, who is selling Boy Scout Christmas wreaths. I don’t recognize the young man, and his Mother looks vaguely familiar, but I cannot quite place where we have met. (This is a phenomenon that has happened to me a lot during my life in the Foreign Service!).
The lady greets me warmly and tells me that I may not have realized it, but I had helped both her and her son many years before. I am baffled. She then proceeded to tell me that through the gift of a bunch of Russian stories I had made a long time ago, she and her adopted son had bonded. Although it would take a little while for them to overcome the language barrier, those books brought the two of them together. That little boy, many years back, could find solace in something so familiar, and could read in his language… and she, at least, could hold the books while he snuggled with her, delighting in their content.
I had totally forgotten what I had done. Yet the memories came pouring out of the recesses of my mind. I was humbled and touched as I have never been. Today, the little Russian boy is a young man. I wonder what he is doing nowadays.
Actions do have consequences. One sometimes is blind to the ripple effect of a tiny gift. So, my sons did not learn Russian – they closed that door. But, for a little boy out of a Russian orphanage, lost in his new home in the US, a window was opened.
And for me? The boy’s Mother gave me the biggest gift of all: discovering that I had, unknowingly, helped open that window!
Dum Spiro Spero 