Some acts of kindness stay with us for years.
At the Detroit Pen Show this year, I saw my old friends Mike and Mary for the first time in many years.
When I saw them on Friday, I was simply happy to see familiar faces again. We greeted each other, talked, and caught up a little. I had no idea then how much their lives had changed.
The next day, I saw Mike waiting patiently outside the restroom for Mary. As we talked, he quietly shared with me that Mary had been experiencing memory loss and that he was now caring for her.
There was something about seeing him waiting for her that brought back a story I had carried in my heart for nearly ten years.
A Little Girl and Four Tiny Pens
In November 2017, my family attended the Ohio Pen Show. My daughter, Hạnh-Nhân, was nine years old then.
We went to the pen auction, where one of the lots contained four tiny vintage pens.
Hạnh-Nhân fell in love with them.
She kept raising her bidding paddle, hoping to win the lot. I had given myself a budget for pens, though, and eventually the bidding went beyond what we could spend. The four little pens went home with someone else.
That should have been the end of the story.
But Mike had been helping with the auction, standing at the front and showing the pens to the bidders. From up there, he had noticed this little nine-year-old girl trying so hard to win those tiny pens.
The next day, Mike found the woman who had won the lot. He asked if she might sell him just one of the four tiny vintage pens so he could give it to Hạnh-Nhân. He was willing to pay her price.
She said no.
Mike still didn’t forget.
He remembered that a friend of his collected pens like these, so after the show he contacted her. She did have some, and at the time she happened to need money for dental work.
Mike made a deal with her. He bought the pens, giving her the money she needed, and the little pens eventually made their way to Hạnh-Nhân.
I had watched my nine-year-old daughter hope for four.
Mike had tried to get her just one.
In the end, he found her eight.
For years, I didn’t even know that Mike was the person behind the gift. I had thought the pens came from someone associated with the Ohio Pen Show. It wasn’t until much later that I learned the whole story.
Mike had never told me.
After I found out, whenever our paths crossed at a pen show, I would thank him again for remembering my little girl and for going so far out of his way to make her happy.
Nearly Ten Years Later
Standing there in Detroit all these years later, watching Mike care for Mary, I remembered those eight little pens.
The circumstances could not have been more different, yet somehow I recognized the same thing.
Kindness is not always something grand or visible. Sometimes it is simply noticing.
Noticing a nine-year-old girl who wanted four tiny pens.
Remembering her after the auction was over.
Waiting patiently outside a door for the person you love.
Staying beside someone when life is no longer as it once was.
That Saturday night, I went home from the pen show with Mike and Mary on my mind.
I sat down at my writing desk and began to write.
To walk beside someone
through the bright years is Love.
To remain beside them
when the road becomes difficult,
holding the memories they can
no longer hold,
is Love in its deepest form.
I surrounded the words with an ornamental border and added a small dedication:
To Mary and Mike — from Hong, with love.
The next morning, I brought the finished piece back to the Detroit Pen Show.
I gave it to Mike.
I stood across the table as he read the words I had written for them. He became emotional. He told me it was the best thing that had happened to him and Mary at the show that year.
Then he showed it to Mary.
She cried, too.
There are gifts we remember because of what they are.
And there are gifts we remember because of the heart behind them.
Nearly ten years ago, Mike quietly gave my little girl eight tiny pens. He never expected recognition for it, and for years I didn’t even know what he had done.
This year, I was able to give something back — not eight little pens, but something made with my own hands and the art I love.
Perhaps that is why this piece means so much to me.
It began with penmanship.
But it was really about kindness, memory, and the quiet ways we carry one another through life.
Love, in its deepest form.
