Kindness

Kindness is a love that we show to one another every day. We have a choice on whether to use or not. Some choose to love one another; others decide they will do what seems best fit for the moment. I am here to tell a story about this. It is a short one. One that may not even seem to have much importance or great interest to you, but I believe that, when thought about, we can all learn something from it. For kindness can be something hard to share with others, but when shown, it can be a great honor to your heart; it is what we all know to be right, deep down inside of us. So let me tell you this story and we will just see what you partake of it.

There are many times in my life in which I have had to learn to be kind to a person who has hurt me; I have been hurt many times in my life, but when hurt greater things always seem to come.

I will start with my younger years. When I was but eleven years old, I competed in my first real pageant and surprisingly, won. From then on, I entered in other pageants here and there, never really winning anything because I was not as pretty as a person might think, nor am I even close to being as cute and as beautiful as the other girls; But I am beautiful in my own way and I know that now.

I continued in these efforts, having fun and making friends while I was at it. Some pageants were disappointing and made me cry. I did not feel pretty or like anyone considered some one my size to be beauty pageant material. I did continue, however, with my mother at my side and my father encouraging me all the way. I won a few things here and there, but there were a few experiences that stood out the most to me.

I do not consider myself“Ms. Congeniality”, but I did win the award once in Colorado. That was my favorite pageant ever and I had the most fun there. Other experiences are noteworthy and I would tell you of them, if it were not for the reason of this story being written in the first place.

The year was 1999, and I was off to Florida for two weeks. I was going to spend nine days at the pageant in Orlando at the Marriot Hotel, and another two days at another quaint hotel while visiting Disney World. The pageant: National Preteen. My title: Ms. California. I had a good time overall. I cannot say that I made the best of friends. In fact, I never kept in contact with any of my friends from pageants, unfortunately. The pool at the Marriot was very nice, half inside, half outside and everything inside and out was “fancy”. I must say that after all those years of pageants I do not think I will ever be able to go back to staying at Motel 6 and Days Inn.

At this pageant there were “queens” and princesses”, I was a queen for California. There were girls from every state and one girl in particular from Puerto Rico. I cannot recall her name, only that she is very important to this story.

The pageant went on; I cannot remember much of what happened. I seem to remember that I was disappointed a few times with things, but got over them.

When we went to one event, interview, we were able to vote for a Ms. Congeniality. Now, I have not told you that during this pageant I had no one in particular who I wanted to vote for and in no way was I going to vote for the girl from Puerto Rico, for I had taken a disliking t her. She seemed to my eyes, to be a rude and arrogant girl. Therefore, I voted for someone else and went on with the pageant.

Towards the end of the pageant, all participants began talking about the different awards. I did my speech, gowns, casual wear, talent (which was very hard for me, but I will save that for another story). Back stage there was many girls talking and enjoying themselves in between these events. Some time, for some reason, I took it into my head to do something I did not think I would do. Since the other girls like the girl from Puerto Rico so much, and I thought she was a shoe-in for wining Ms. Congeniality, I thought I would give her a chance. With this in my mind, I went up to her, and although she spoke very little English, said hello. I began to say a few nice things, of which our story is all about, kindness, and began to take her in. I told her how nice she was and how I was sure she was going to win Ms. Congeniality and in this, actually began to like her. All she could say in return was thank you and I could not help but like her then.

Soon it was time for awards. I was sure I would win something. However, when our little show off dance was over, and they began to announce the awards, I knew I could not have won anything. My only chance was for the title. Ms. Congeniality was awarded to some other girl and I was quite surprised too. It was then that they brought an award on stage, they were giving out, that I had not expected. It was called the Pageantry Magazine Spirit Award. The prize was being to someone who was kind, and showed love to others, and someone who the judges and pageant directors thought deserved something like it. To my surprise, the name that was called out was my own and I was awarded The Spirit Award (I later got my picture put in the magazine).

As it turned out, the judges had seen me being kind to the other girls and had decided that I was the one who should get the Spirit award. I would go on, but the rest of what happened matters little in this story.

Now, do not go away thinking that being Kind is something you should do just to get a “Spirit Award”. Being kind is something that comes from the heart and has its own reward in turn. I learned that the girl from Puerto Rico was actually a very nice girl and got a very warm feeling inside because I knew that I had done the right thing. Kindness, love, compassion, forgiveness, God gives us all these things, and has taught me over the years to use them. I think you should use them too. Be the person who stretches herself to do the right thing. God loves you, and so you should show his love to others. May he bless you with this story.