As the blessing of health is returning to me a little at a time, I’ve spent time thinking more about yesterday’s blog. Here is Part 2 of a possible story of kindness.
When a person has gone a long time without a home, the idea of “belongings” feels foreign. Carry what you can, leave what you must, and learn not to grow attached. Furniture, curtains, and tablecloths are luxuries for other people with keys in their pockets, fridges that hum at night, and a table.
That first night in a new home, James sat at that table in silence. No TV. No noise. Just him, the hum of the heater, and a tabletop supporting a well-used Bible. The air smelled like fresh paint and possibility, but also like distance from everything lost.
The following day, volunteers from a local church dropped by with bags of “necessities”, among them, a tablecloth. “These things are for you,” they said. “Hopefully they’ll help your place feel more like home.”
Carefully unfolding it, the soft green background covered with a white floral design touched his heart. It took a moment before tears started to flow. Somehow, impossibly, it was just like the one his grandmother had.
Long before life unraveled and loss and circumstance knocked him down, Sunday dinners at her house were his safe place. In those days, life felt full, and the original tablecloth was always there. He used to trace the edges while she told stories or scolded him for picking at food. It smelled like clean linen, chicken soup, and love.
He never thought he’d see it again, let alone have a table to cover.
But here it was. Maybe not the exact one—but close enough that memory rushed in like a flood, and for the first time in years, he didn’t feel like a stranger to himself, but like someone who’d come back home.
Slowly spreading it across his table, he smoothed out the wrinkles with reverence. That single act made the empty house feel full. Not with things, but with meaning, dignity, and something like grace.
To some, a tablecloth is just fabric. For James, it was proof he’d not been forgotten but seen as someone worthy of beauty. Healing often begins not with grand gestures, but with quiet ones stitched in kindness, folded in memory, and offered without expectation.
Every time he sits at that table now, he does so with gratitude. For the roof, yes. For the heat, the fridge, and the shower. But mostly, for the tablecloth and how it laid a foundation for something he hadn’t felt in a very long time:
Belonging.
Whether or not this story happened will remain my secret. I can tell you this. A couple was deeply touched in unexpected ways while dropping off a few bags of “necessities”. Sometimes, things happen that way when a simple act of kindness turns into something full of meaning and beauty.
As for me, the days of Kleenex and Mucinex are over and I’m back to my old self.
More tomorrow.
