Quote of the Day

The value of simple kindness can be hard to accept when you're trying to learn the Perfect Way to comfort someone, especially when you're anxious about what not to do or say.  This is why Dr. Charles Garfield, founder of the Shanti Project, which trains volunteers to care for the sick, opens up his training with the following: "Everyone wants skills.  How to say this?  How to do that?  But when people are dying, no amount of skills will earn you trust like the kindness that brings you to them in the first place.  If you take nothing else from this training, take this: Your kindness is your credential."

-- Kelsey Crowe and Emily McDowell, There Is No Good Card for This, p. 58