If Wikipedia displayed a picture of an individual to illustrate the concept of “Human Kindness”, whose picture might be there?  Mother Teresa?  She is the person that first comes to my mind.  If your friends were asked to name the person they think of in your circle that embodies human kindness best, would you be mentioned?

Since we have been in Panama this time around, both Marla and I have been sick.  I went to the doctor last Thursday and was given a couple of prescriptions.  I arrived at the pharmacy to have them filled, and as I walked in, an elderly fellow of perhaps 75 or 80 was also entering.  He had on wrinkled clothes, a well-worn straw hat, a four day old beard and hobbled along using a single crutch.  Frankly, I pretty much ignored him, but did notice him as a very small man, perhaps 5 feet tall.

“Farmacia Any” (pronounced “Annie”) is a simple place on the main drag in Boquete, Panama.  There are a couple of display cases with cosmetics and the usual to your right and left as you walk in, but everything about the place directs your eyes to the service counter which forms a bar-height barrier at the back of the room.  There is a cash register and operator on the left and a couple of pharmacists working all of the remaining counter space to the right.  Customers arrange themselves along the counter for their turn, while others mill behind them, mentally keeping track when to step up to the bar.  I take a place behind, while the crippled little man moves toward the second row to see it part for him as he continues to the busy counter.  Those there, compress to make room for him without a word from anyone.

Immediately, a pharmacist walks up to the fellow and begins a conversation, during which I understand nothing of their machine gun Spanish.  What I can tell is that the old man is searching for an answer the lady pharmacist is not providing.  Then, a man at the right end of the counter offers a thought, then one on the left and I see the confusion clear, releasing the lady to fill his needs.  Once served, he pays, crutches out of the store and away.

What I saw in Farmacia Any was Human Kindness, acted out without a word.  It was natural.  One just sees opportunities to help those in need and takes them, right?