One of the questions I ask in this series is: “What’s a compliment you’ve received that really sticks with you?” I specifically ask it that way, and not “what’s your favorite” or “what’s the best” because I think the things that live rent-free in our minds stick for a reason, whether or not we fully understand them or agree. Compliments, criticisms, and childhood memories can easily fade into silence, but other times they burrow in so deeply their echoes last for years.

Daphne Johnson pondered that question longer than the others. I know the feeling because I often turn my own questions on myself. It’s not like either of us shy from compliments or don’t appreciate them, but when pressed, at least for me, it’s like trying to recall a particular song when I’m already listening to another. For Daphne, the compliment singing clearest at that moment was “gentle.”

“I think many people throughout my life have told me that, and it’s something that’s a little surprising to me,” she explained. “As much as I can be kind and loving, gentleness is not something that I necessarily pursue. It has stuck because I didn’t expect it.”

It made sense to me. It’s the light she cannot see but the rest of us do. It’s not something she has to consciously work at, it’s just how she is. I saw it clearly during the two years we worked together, even if I couldn’t coin a word for it. Gentleness doesn’t have to be some kind of softness in the way most people imagine it. In Daphne’s case, it was tactfully gliding into a room with intentionality and confidence. Gentle is a way of moving, thinking, and acting with apparent certainty and self-assurance, sans vanity. I think that’s the gentleness people notice in her, even if she finds it surprising or unexpected herself.

I mischaracterized Daphne as reserved upon first impression. I saw a fellow introvert. “In new spaces I can come off as reserved,” she clarified, “because I attempt to be thoughtful in the way that I interact and approach people. I want to do it in a way that’s comfortable for them. I’m reading the room in any space.”

Reading, in a literal sense, is breathing for her. I’d often find her in the staff lounge during lunch, seemingly spellbound by another book. They never stood a chance against her appetite for words; pages turned as if in an afternoon breeze. I once asked if she ever found typos in the immortalized words of those untouchable authors. Of course she did, and that overflowing attention to detail spilled into her day job, too. 

When I posted projects for review, I anticipated Daphne’s red pen one hundred percent of the time. She caught everything and posted sugar-free feedback, but the pie never tasted humble. It was nourishing. Maybe that’s the gentleness. It’s not the absence of contradiction, but the confidence to hand someone the lens she’s using so they can see from a different angle.

A fellow photographer, we see through the same lens when it comes to photographing people. “It can be really challenging to watch others struggle to accept their own appearance, because I definitely experienced that in my own life,” she said. “I’ll take people’s pictures, show them, and I see them as wonderful, beautiful, and amazing, but they look at the photo and immediately pick out their flaws. We’re all wired to look for those flaws, but it’s disheartening.

“You don’t get to see yourself interact with other people,” she added after a pause. “There’s light and joy in that. In a mirror or in a frozen photo, you miss all of that context.”

Her role as Community Engagement Resident at Grace City Church has pushed her to interact in ways beyond her comfort zone, but her faith has always propelled her onward. “It’s not about what you think loving your neighbor looks like,” she said. “That can be more harmful than helpful. You ask people how support can be received, and you learn from them. Loving your neighbor means putting others first, even when they’re different from you.”

Faith shaped her early on. She recalled a particular cold shoulder treatment from a friend in fourth grade, and how the silence swelled in her ten-year-old mind. It kept her up at night so she prayed for reconciliation. She asked God to help her understand it; to help her fix it. The next morning, her friend finally asked if she had said something mean about her. Daphne told her no, of course not, and the fracture healed just like that. It was as much drama as you might imagine on a fourth-grade playground, but at the time it was her world. “It was the first time I remember God answering a prayer,” she said.

She smiled at that memory, and also felt compelled to fill me in on the time a flock of geese chased her and her sisters. The middle sibling of three, it was one of her earliest memories. Her mother held her youngest sister, while she and her eldest, 3 and 5 respectively, quacked at a gaggle of geese until they honked and waddled savagely toward them, as Daphne remembers it. It’s simple and wholesome, and the pure joy and fun of it has never been lost on her.

“My parents have always laid so much prayer over me in my life, and given me encouragement and a safe space for all the emotions and challenges,” she said. “They always told me, as long as I tried my best, they were proud, even if my best isn’t perfect, and it never is, those are growth opportunities.”

In her accord with imperfection, patience with herself flourished when she needed it most. “I had thought encountering change shouldn’t impact me, but I realized it does,” she said. “I realized when I was just plowing forward, staying busy, I had to stop and ask, ‘Why am I anxious? Why am I sad?’ It’s because I hadn’t processed some change that affected me.”

I realized when she said it that I’d never fully considered the toll of many transitions myself. Her ability to circle that idea with a red pen so early in life hit me as one of the most powerful forms of gentleness; that is, offering the same patience to herself that she so naturally extends to others.

At the beginning of our conversation, we could have just as easily passed on the compliment question; promised to revisit it later only to forget about it forever. Instead, it stuck with me because it had stuck with her. The more we talked, the more I understood why it lingered: People see a version of gentleness in her that’s neither fragile, nor timid, but steady, intentional, and self-assured in a way that doesn’t capsize the boat when she rocks it.

That gentleness is a powerful projection of how her faith has shaped her: to love her neighbor, to embrace change with patience, to find joy and fun in the everyday, and to offer grace to herself.

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Kind Light Charleston is an emerging professional headshot and personal portrait photography studio based in Charleston, South Carolina. I’m always looking for people to highlight in my blog, so if you know someone who shines a kind light in this world, I want to meet them! Reach out to josh@kindlightcharleston.com.