Funny thing is that this person was actually angry at me. She thought that I intentionally forgot something and in turn made her life miserable at that moment. The thing is, I didn’t forget it. I never knew it was my job to bring it in the first place. I definitely didn’t intend to cause her any misery.

So the scene played out with her publically yelling at me and blaming every “bad” thing that was happening at that moment on me. I was humiliated. Then I was mad. Then I was pissed off. How dare her? After all my volunteer hours and dedication to this non-profit, she has the balls to yell at me? All of a sudden I am feeling the exact way she is acting. It felt horrible. My head hurt, my stomach ached, my heart was pounding.

I left and went to find this missing item. I brought it back and placed it (well slammed it down) in front of her and headed for the door. Just before I walked out, I looked back and made full eye contact with her. This rarely happened with this person. She always looked above, below or beyond you but never in the eye. That’s when it hit me…the overwhelming sadness.

I sat in my car for a long time that night letting all the emotions run through me but the sadness stuck. I know sadness. Not because my life is filled with it but because I sense it. I know when someone is sad (even strangers I walk by). I came into this world on the heels of sadness. My brother had been born and died (at just one day old) just two years before I was born. My arrival was joyful and yet sad all at the same time. A glorious mix of emotions.

I decided I wasn’t going to add to her sadness. I wasn’t going to hold a grudge, yell back at her, list all the reasons she was wrong for what she did. I decided to do something different. Something completely unexpected. I assured my bruised ego that we didn’t need to prove our case and that we would be OK and I sent her a beautiful bouquet of flowers. She was shocked. She called crying and saying that she should have sent me flowers. I told her she could if she wanted to but that I sent them to her because she appeared to need some love and happiness in her life to temper the anger and sadness.

We need all of our emotions to function in this world and sometimes certain emotions take over and we need to balance them out. When someone is expressing anger, more anger is not what they need. Being right needs to take a back seat to doing right for a fellow human being in need of some love, compassion and understanding.