I was not having a good time seeing my children off at the airport. They were emigrating, excited at the challenge a new country and new jobs would bring. I was facing the prospect of not seeing them for a long time. They were still sorting out things at the check-in counter, and I went ahead to the immigration desk with one bag. At the escalator, a family was struggling with two laden trolleys and sundry luggage. A small tyke, barely knee high to a grasshopper, gazed with obvious terror at the machinery swallowing her father, her mother, her sister... 

I remarked: "Looks scary!" She flashed a terrified grin and replied: "It will be all right; I will hold your hand." At the bottom, I thanked her, and she replied: "You're welcome!" and skipped off to her waiting parents. 

My mother, at 101 years old, is in a frail care facility and, due to failing eyesight and hearing, increasingly isolated. But the nurse who takes her blood pressure every day had discovered that my mother was a missionary in the Sotho-speaking part of South Africa and, in fact, taught people to read and write in Sotho. So while taking the blood pressure, she would sing beautiful Sotho hymns with 'granny.'

I recently had to collect an identity document from the notorious Home Affairs office, where people, so I hear, have to wait for hours for service. On my arrival, I went to a security person and asked where I should go. She grabbed my hand and said: "For collections, darling, this is the line, but you are a pensioner, no? Then you go there."

A friendly, efficient young lady took my details, and made me sign a form while she went into the vault, and in five minutes, I had the document. A beautiful smile sent me on my way. 

Sometimes a smile, a greeting, a 'thank you,' or a word of appreciation can make a world of difference to someone who might be having a rough day.

And it costs nothing.