You know, there are days when you witness something that’s kind of trivia but it’s so sad, that it sits with you long after it happens.
My landlady has a large farm beside her house. Over time, weeds had grown wildly and choked the crops to the point that the farm land was almost unrecognizable. She’s elderly, but I know her to be strong enough to tend to this farm herself. This time, though, the weeds were actually too much. Just looking at them felt overwhelming, so I guess that’s the reason she decided to hire help.
There’s a woman in the community known for weeding farms and gardens. She’s a widow with four children, and life has not been gentle with her. To survive, she takes on any job she can find. Sometimes her eldest son follows her to help. It’s actually sad that this boy's childhood has been exchanged for hectic responsibility.
My landlady hired her, and that morning, the woman arrived with her children, all four of them since schools are on holiday. The farm was massive, easily more than three plots of land. Under the harsh sun, I occasionally strolled to my window and watched them working tirelessly. Even the toddler used his hands to root out weeds. At the end of the day, by my own estimation, she had cleared more than half of the farm.
When it was time to be paid, an ugly thing happened.
My landlady began to argue. The argument was what drew my attention. She claimed the woman hadn’t done anything significant to demand for the amount she mentioned. Then she concluded she would only pay her ₦1,000, which is less than a dollar. Less than a dollar, just imagine such an amount for a full day of back-breaking work. For a woman who is feeding four children and such effort poured out under the sun with no shortcuts.
The woman stood there, clearly exhausted and hungry. She didn’t argue for long. So she snatched the money angrily, gathered her children, and walked away.
I felt sick watching it. Because this wasn’t about money alone. It’s about power, about how easily people take advantage of those who are already struggling. About how cruelty often hides behind silly excuses.
Kindness would not have cost my landlady anything not even her pride, comfort or her survival. Paying that woman fairly would not have diminished her life in any way. But withholding kindness stripped someone else of dignity.
When some people speak of kindness, they say it like it’s some grand gesture, like it requires abundance. But moments like this remind me that kindness is often the bare minimum, it’s literally being fair, human, being just.
It truly doesn’t take anything to be kind and yet, for some people, it still feels like too much.
