We Rise, We Resist, We Raise Our Voices

Kindness is a Choice: by Jacqueline Woodson

Dearest Toshi and Jackson Leroi,

Each morning before you leave for school, I say to you, Be safe. Be kind. I think some days that because you’re both still young, you don’t understand why I don’t let you leave the house without looking into your eyes and saying these words.

I want you to see, through my own eyes, how much I mean what I say–that kindness is a choice. We can walk through the world choosing to think of others. Or we could not. Each morning when you walk out our door, I want you to ask yourselves–What choice am I going to make today? I want that choice to be kindness. Because right now, all around you, the world is feeling unkind. As a child, I was taught that I am in the world but not of the world. This is what I want you to think when the world feels like it has lost its mind, when leaders don’t feel like leaders, when adults lie and bully, when you know, in your brilliant and beautiful an loving hearts, the right thing to do and the right thing to be.

Already I see it–in the letters home from teachers…JL thinks of others when…and Toshi’s kindness shines through. So I know that some of what I’m saying is reaching you. Hold fast to it. Hold deep. Walk through each day and out of it, knowing the blanket of love each of you is wrapped in and ready to open that blanket to others. I love you more than you know. And then some. –Mommy