They did not break my spirit. They just broke my mouth

 

A SMILE CAN CHANGE EVERYTHING

Jill Hutchison was depressed. She was sitting in her car in her driveway in Grove City, Columbus, Ohio, one bleak drizzly morning in spring this year. Tears ran down her face.

Just then the trash truck drove up. A young black man hopped off the truck looked over at the parked car, smiled a big grin and waved to her. She noticed that his two front teeth were missing.

“If this kid can smile in this weather I need to suck it up,” she said to herself. Something about his attitude touched her.

The kid’s name was Jacquez ‘Jackie’ Worthy. In the story written by Theodore Decker in the Columbus Dispatch Jackie says he remembers the meeting. He has “always had the gift of just being able to read a person by their face.” On that bleak morning he saw weariness in Jill’s face and wanted to make her feel better.

“A smile can change everything. Everything.” Jackie said.

From then on Jackie brought Jill’s can up to her house every Thursday.

Jackie, the sanitation worker, the garbageman, came to Columbus about five years ago as a teenager. He planned to live with an aunt to begin his life as an adult.

One night last year as Jackie and his girlfriend were enjoying an evening out three drunk men started to harass them, “disrespecting his girlfriend.”  He asked the men to leave them alone, and “tried to keep the peace,” but one man hit him in his face so hard that it broke his front teeth.

“They did not break my spirit. They just broke my mouth,” he said.

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His meeting with Jill that morning was just one of many he has had with people on the route he works. He also met Denise Johns and her family while on the job. Jackie made her day on a morning when her 15-year-old son was in a bad mood. Jackie did the “moonwalk” across the street and by the time he had ended his performance Denise’s son was happy and laughing.

Denise was so impressed with the encounter that she posted about it on Facebook. “He’s just a light,” she said.

Out of the messages a plan was made to help Jackie have the dental work done to replace his two front teeth. “I am humbly thankful,” he said, amazed at the kindness of total strangers.

Jackie’s attitude to difficult and unpleasant situations is rare and very inspiring. He does not hold a grudge; Decker wrote in his article. As his new friends are helping him he said he hopes he will meet the guys who assaulted him that night and thank them.

Thank them? Thank them for what? Is he serious? Yes, he is.

Why would he want to thank them?

“Because I went from there to here and I am really humbled by it,” he said.

Just as little acts of meanness have lasting implications so do little acts of kindness. They compound, they add up and increase, they grow greater and greater, Decker wrote.

Yes indeed, they do!

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