Whenever I go back to New Zealand for the Christmas holidays, within 2 days of being on the ground I get punched in the face by hay fever, despite preemptively taking tablets to stave off the pollen tsunami.
A few years ago, my parents moved out to a rural property. This place had a tonne of privet—which is a weed, and a pest, that can significantly worsen asthma and hay fever symptoms.
The first time I arrived home and visited them in their new property, I couldn’t stop my eyes from watering. All my sinuses were blocked. I wanted to rub my eyes 24/7, and I could barely sleep at night. No amount of medication was helping. This persisted for my entire trip, and it was miserable.
A year later, when I arrived home I found out Dad had spent the better part of 2 weeks hunting down every privet tree on the property and gotten rid of them all. My hay fever was extremely mild compared with the previous year.
What I loved was Dad’s “no fanfare” approach. He did the work quietly, and he didn’t tell me in advance. Once I got home, mentioned it as a passing comment in conversation.
He taught me a lot about quiet, profound generosity that day.