One of the things I do at juvenile court is facilitate a class in helping juveniles develop their aware­ness of the larger world (as opposed to being focused solely on them­selves). One exercise my colleagues and I have them do is to pay it forward: doing some act of kindness for some­one else without any expectation of reward. You don’t have to spend money, we tell them. Small acts are okay too.

It is an exercise I often carry around in my head and heart. Most recently, I carried it to Rochester, Minnesota.

I was at the Mayo Clinic the Tuesday after Memorial Day for restaging and consultation. A required stop in the morning was having a blood draw at one of their labs.

Because I have a port, I must report to one specific lab (out of many). This one has a waiting area that reminds me of the ones in airports near your gate. Except for a very small area near the receptionists, the chairs are arranged in long, straight rows. Most are filled in the haphazard patterns of strangers: two filled, one open, one filled, two open, and so on.

Most of us at that time of the morning have not had anything to eat, being required to fast, and our faces show it. I in particular am not at my best if I have been up for more than an hour and not had breakfast. I tend to lapse into a hungry stupor, my mind barely registering the flow of bodies as nurses call the patients back.

So it was with a dulled awareness that I saw a couple, probably a husband and wife, leave the check-in desk and make their way into the larger room for seats. He was gaunt and in a wheelchair; she stolidly pushed him. The wife paused momentarily while they both scanned the waiting room, looking for a place where she could sit and his wheelchair would not block traffic.

It was a delayed reaction, but I stood up and said “take our seats” (which were on the main aisle). My husband Warren and I moved back one row, she maneuvered the wheelchair out of the traffic flow, and that was that.

A small act.

Later that day, we were waiting in the hematology oncology department for my consultation. I have yet to see Tom Brokaw there, but there were plenty of other patients waiting.

Over my shoulder, I could hear two men talking. Glancing over, I saw two couples, probably in their early 60s, facing one another. The one man was leaning forward and talking rapidly and intensely to the other. His voice carried just enough that I could catch occasional phrases: “so exhausted,” “my doctor thought it was my heart but that checked out,” and so on. There was a passing reference to transplants.

The more I heard, the more it sounded like multiple myeloma. My suspicions were confirmed when the more talkative of the two, on being summoned back to the examining rooms, asked what drug the other was taking. “Velcade.”

The man exiting left his business card with the other. “Call me if you want to talk. Or if you have any questions. I mean it.”

A small act.

I don’t interact a lot in waiting rooms, tending to be locked into my own thoughts about the upcoming appointment. All the same, I got up, walked over to the remaining couple, apologized for eavesdropping, and asked the man whether he had multiple myeloma. When he confirmed he did, I said I did too, and we talked.

He’s a newbie, just diagnosed in February. Everything is foreign and strange to him and his wife. They are still reeling from the diagnosis of a cancer they had never heard of.

His wife looked at me and asked when I was diagnosed.

“Twelve and a half years ago,” I said.

A look of surprise, of relief, of sudden hope washed across her face. “Twelve and a half years,” she said softly, more to herself than anything.

My pager went off just then, so I told them good luck.

A small act.

My days are made up of small acts. My guess is that yours are too. Sometimes they are personal: I’m smiling because the spiderwort is in bloom and the bees are back. And sometimes I skim a rock into the pond, knowing that the ripples will push out and wash up against the far shore.