![\"nycsubway.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/133\/import\/nycsubway.jpg\")
<\/span>About three months after, the young man next to me on the platform softly cried as he clutched a framed family-photo collage. I touched his arm as people had done for me. He told me that his beautiful sister (she was beautiful: I saw the pictures) had just passed away. I consoled him as best I could, and told him about the Salvation Army lady and that he would survive this. After he’d boarded his train, I worried that I hadn’t helped enough. Then I remembered: I’m one of many. There will be other platforms and other passengers, there for him to talk and offer prayers or a tissue or whatever seems right. And one day, when his life gets some brightness back, he’ll help somebody else make it through.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The woman who helped me was in the Salvation Army, but maybe we’re all in an army of sorts: great battalions of humans who can seem like angels. We can’t make everything all right for anybody, but we can something better for somebody. And because we’re not<\/span>\u00a0“an army of one,” what we can do is enough.<\/div>\n
<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/span><\/div>\n
Note: If you\u00a0subscribe to Victoria’s newsletter<\/a>, “The Charmed Monday Minute,” by June 21, you can get in on next week’s <\/span>Living a Charmed Life<\/span>\u00a0bonus campaign. This means that if you respond to a special email and buy a copy of the book online on Tuesday, June 23, you’ll be able to receive absolutely free over 100 valuable downloadable gifts from such luminaries as Mariel Hemingway, John Gray, Judith Orloff, Marci Shimoff, and Beliefnet’s own “Our Lady of Weight Loss” Janice Taylor<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Passing a Kindness On - Your Charmed Life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/2009\/06\/passing-a-kindness-on.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Passing a Kindness On - Your Charmed Life\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Nearly two years ago, my teenage stepson died suddenly. To try not to add to my husband’s grief, I did my crying away from home, usually on the subway. Ever tolerant New Yorkers left me to my feelings, or touched my arm or proffered a tissue. Once a Salvation Army woman spoke to Jesus on…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/2009\/06\/passing-a-kindness-on.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Your Charmed Life\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-06-17T11:40:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/yourcharmedlife\/files\/import\/nycsubway.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Victoria Moran\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Passing a Kindness On - Your Charmed Life","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/2009\/06\/passing-a-kindness-on.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Passing a Kindness On - Your Charmed Life","og_description":"Nearly two years ago, my teenage stepson died suddenly. To try not to add to my husband’s grief, I did my crying away from home, usually on the subway. Ever tolerant New Yorkers left me to my feelings, or touched my arm or proffered a tissue. Once a Salvation Army woman spoke to Jesus on…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/2009\/06\/passing-a-kindness-on.html","og_site_name":"Your Charmed Life","article_published_time":"2009-06-17T11:40:33+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/yourcharmedlife\/files\/import\/nycsubway.jpg"}],"author":"Victoria Moran","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/2009\/06\/passing-a-kindness-on.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/2009\/06\/passing-a-kindness-on.html","name":"Passing a Kindness On - Your Charmed Life","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/2009\/06\/passing-a-kindness-on.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/2009\/06\/passing-a-kindness-on.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/yourcharmedlife\/files\/import\/nycsubway.jpg","datePublished":"2009-06-17T11:40:33+00:00","dateModified":"2009-06-17T11:40:33+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/#\/schema\/person\/ebb794f0d368bdf88a1a63a4e4461b75"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/2009\/06\/passing-a-kindness-on.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/2009\/06\/passing-a-kindness-on.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/2009\/06\/passing-a-kindness-on.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/yourcharmedlife\/files\/import\/nycsubway.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/yourcharmedlife\/files\/import\/nycsubway.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/2009\/06\/passing-a-kindness-on.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Passing a Kindness On"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/","name":"Your Charmed Life","description":"Victoria Moran on living with heart and soul in the real world","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/#\/schema\/person\/ebb794f0d368bdf88a1a63a4e4461b75","name":"Victoria Moran","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/e82\/e82418f1930873d06f20efd5782c1bb9x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/e82\/e82418f1930873d06f20efd5782c1bb9x96.jpg","caption":"Victoria Moran"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/author\/vmoran"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/177"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Nearly two years ago, my teenage stepson died suddenly. To try not to add to my husband’s grief, I did my crying away from home, usually on the subway. Ever tolerant New Yorkers left me to my feelings, or touched my arm or proffered a tissue. Once a Salvation Army woman spoke to Jesus on…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":177,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spiritual-adventuring"],"yoast_head":"\n