KEY POINTS:
I'll never forget the first time someone brought food around to my house unsolicited. It was 21 years ago and I had just had my first baby. The Samoan nurse who had looked after me in hospital turned up at my door with a bowl of beef and
rice noodles which I later found out was sapasui.
I was shocked by her kindness to a young new mum she barely knew and never forgot the comfort her food brought me.
Food is the best gift in times of need and was once a standard activity between people when new neighbours moved in, or people faced births and deaths, illness and sadness.
So that's what I do, because it makes people feel good. Which would be great if I didn't have the dreadful habit of feeling terrific about myself in the process.
I cook, deliver and then walk on air so proud of myself that I did an unsolicited kind act. Just writing about it is probably my subconscious having another go at showing off my enormous capacity for compassion and my Mother Teresa status.
Recently, the kitchen went into overload after a close friend had a fall. The two of us, my kitchen and I, churned out meals by the dozen. Then another friend fell over in a more emotional sense.
We had lots of long phone calls and I was just about to alert the kitchen when he suddenly came right. When another friend had a death in the family, the kitchen was fired up and she came around for dinner. All three friends in one week.
What I had failed to factor into my largesse and random acts of kindness was that I was working like a demon, my husband was out of town, my children were holding up signs alerting me to the fact they too could do with a few acts of kindness, and my poor friend arrived at the precise time my benevolence stores found themselves entirely depleted.
As she huddled on the footpath outside my house waiting for her cab at 10.30pm after a hastily cooked steak and baked potato I fell asleep at precisely 10.31pm.
I was buggered. And my charity chef had deserted me, leaving in its wake a bundle of overworked self pity with the flu.
Who knew that doing for others was so exhausting?
I was suddenly reminded of a counsellor who, after listening to the story of my busy life, asked who looked after me at the end of my day?
I looked at her in astonishment. "The universe?" I suggested. "My spirit guide?" I added, wondering if she was one of those counsellors.
In this instance there was nothing to do but moan about my selfless acts of charity and my hard work, to anyone who would listen. Their eyes glazed. One friend poured me a whisky and told me to shut up. Another friend made me dance with him to Cindi Lauper and laughed like a loon when we fell over.
I came right the next day and tidied my office, as one does when the world evens out.
And then I found it. A cheerful-looking bag lying neglected in the corner of the room. I peered inside and discovered champagne, a book I'd been wanting to read for ages and my favourite bath salts.
"Whose bag is this?" I yelled, holding it aloft in the kitchen waiting for its owner to claim it.
"Oh, it's yours," mumbled my eldest daughter with her head still in her art history study. "It was dropped off last week. Something about cheering you up."
Last week. When I was the moaning cow from hell. I delved further and found a card from a good friend. Her act of kindness had sat unnoticed for five days.
I lunged for the phone, embarrassed about the grump fest and deeply apologetic for not thanking her sooner.
"Don't give it another thought," she said. "Once you give something, I believe that's it. It's gone. No need for thanks."
How very Mother Teresa of her.
