KINDNESS by Kath Koschel

Because it's really all that matters.

I chose to read Kindness by former New South Wales cricket Kath Koschel after having it on the shelf for a couple of months. The last month of so have been deeply difficult personally, and I felt like reading about one woman’s project to seek out and promote common kindnesses by others was just the tonic at a time like this.

It’s not that I am a person who lacks resilience, gratitude or kindness in my own life. I aim to be as kind as possible and I am deeply grateful when those kindnesses are extended to me. I have been a recipient of so many! However, when one is grieving a loss and that loss feels unexplained or confusing, it can be easy to feel like gratitude can go f*ck itself. It feels like a burden having to be strong and resilient, and I have been sick to my eyeballs of having to be “brave” or “strong” or “the bigger person”.

Koschel was playing cricket for New South Wales when she was severely injured, leading to several surgeries and rehabilitation, ending her cricketing career prematurely. While in rehab, she fell in love with another patient, and over an extended period they started planning a future together, only for Kath’s partner, Jim, to take his own life. Before long, another accident occurred, and Kath found herself back in rehab and learning to walk for a second time. Nothing about any of that was easy and like many, I am unsure just how she got herself through to the other side of it all. This part of the book really resonated for me. There is one particular paragraph late in the book, about the burden of resilience, that really hit the spot for me. So much so, I wrote it down.

This book is also something of a memoir about Koschel’s decision in 2016 (I think?) to leave home with a phone, a change of clothes and no money, and conduct a social experiment to see how far she could get on the kindness of others. She was supported by the community she created on a Facebook page called The Kindness Factory. Kath spent two months travelling Australia, staying in homes with people she met through the page, doing corporate and school talks and generally learning about the lives of others. What she learned was - we all have a story.

Kath acknowledges that she was in an extraordinarily privileged position to be able to conduct this experiment. In reality, she was never really at any risk of sleeping rough or going without. She was safe and looked after in a way so many others at disadvantage are not. Although I recognise this admission in Kath’s writing, there is a small sense of angst in me about this endeavour. Although Kath was met with kindness along the way and I am thrilled she was, she also had an extraordinary platform and had the privilege of picking and choosing the help she accepted. This side of the book is, I think, it’s weakness. Kath’s story is incredible, as is the work she continues to do with The Kindness Factory. The trip around Australia felt, to me, deeply problematic as an exhibit of what kindness truly looks like for those without the privilege so many of us enjoy. If I am blunt: it screamed white, middle class entitlement.

I think Koschel meant well - I don’t think she’s an awful person - quite the opposite. I just think that two month tour was wasn’t authentic kindness - it was safe, privileged and opportunistic.

That element aside, Kath’s story is a moving one. Many of us experience deep trauma and Kath is no exception, and what she has survived is remarkable. I don’t know if I could have come to the other side with her dignity and grace.

If motivational, against-the-odds stories like this is your jam, I recommend it to you. You’ll love it. Overall though, for me, it was a little hit and a little miss.