I’d like to think that we all have a lovely story to tell when asked. Here’s mine:
I was in rush hour Los Angeles traffic when several cars ran over something puncturing our tires. Mine happened in the fast lane.The other cars were able to pull to the right shoulder while my only option was the tight left shoulder against the center divider. As I quickly processed how I would safely navigate changing a flat or call AAA, a car heading in the opposite direction stopped. The driver got out and jumped over the concrete barrier. He had me pop the trunk and remain in the car while he quickly changed my tire. When I thanked him and tried to pay him, he declined with a smile, jumped back over and drove off. I’m still not convinced he wasn’t an angel or maybe even a NASCAR mechanic or both! Either way, it remains one of the nicest things a stranger has done for me. Now your turn…
I’m sure there has been more than one, but the first one I thought of happened thanks to College Confidential. I started a thread about a serious problem one of my daughters had and another CC visitor gave me some leads for professionals to contact to help my daughter. I still feel very grateful.
Maybe not the nicest thing, but one of the things I’ll never forget:
When I was in college, I totaled my car in an ice storm. I ended up in a ditch on the side of the freeway, car on its side. I was there for several hours waiting for a tow and whatnot and precisely one person stopped to see if I was ok. She was a little old Arabic woman who could barely speak English. She was willing to let me sit in her car until someone came to get me. When I politely declined, she brought me some blankets and food from her car to comfort me while I waited.
I will never forget how that small act of kindness made the rest of the day infinitely more bearable.
When I was 19 (a loooooong time ago) I went to a party in Manhattan. I left my coat and purse in the bedroom while I mingled. When I left, I hailed a cab. I was in the cab when I went to check my money – and I had been robbed at the party! I gasped and shouted, “I’ve been robbed! I have no money!” The taxi driver turned off his meter and took me home for free. I wish I could have repaid him somehow.
Not for me, but my wife.
About 17 years ago, my wife rolled her car in snowy weather. The car ended up upside down with her, my two year old D, and my unborn S. Nobody hurt, except for my wife’s skinned knee! I will take a bit of credit for teaching (i.e. constantly nagging) her how to wear the seatbelt while pregnant, how to properly install a child seat, and how to tightly belt a toddler. Also a lot of credit to the Subaru, which had a barely dented roof despite the rollover.
But the kindness was someone stopping, and inviting my wife and D to sit in a warm car until the police arrived and finished processing the accident. But my wife was so shaken she didn’t even get the person’s name to thank later.
Years ago, I was flying alone with my two kids. At the time, oldest was almost 2 and baby was 6 months. I had reserved the last row in an attempt to bother as few people as possible. We were alone in row of 3. Baby in my lap in window seat and toddler in middle seat. Buffer to aisle. Flight attendant came through and told me to buckle up the toddler which probably would have been fine but he freaked out when she attempted to do it even though I asked her not to. FA getting more testy and toddler was becoming unglued. Sweet young lady across the aisle offered to hold my infant so I could hold my toddler. I had tears pouring down my cheeks as that flight took off…long week with in-laws and my parents and I just blubbered a “thank you”.
A lady drove 60+ miles to bring me my wallet that I had left in a phone booth. Like 48 years ago. I gave her every bit of money I had in it, which wasn’t much for a poor student.
My first job out of college was with a big landscape management company in Dallas. I was the supervisor of a crew of guys and we cared for the grass and other landscape plants on huge business properties. It was hard and hot work. One day, I was mowing the grass in an office park out in the sweltering sun and a man in a business suit comes walking up to me and gives me a cold Coke. He told me I looked like I needed it. I really did, and that little act of kindness was very much appreciated.
Oh, I love to tell this story.
It wasn’t a big one as acts of kindness go, but the circumstances were nothing short of miraculous. This was in the 90s, and I was with a bunch of international students who were driving from Midwest to Montana for a backpacking trip. Money was tight, so we rented a full-size van and were taking turns driving night and day, sleeping on the road. We didn’t really know what this part of the country looked like, so in the middle of the Big Sky Country we ran out of gas. This was at 5 am - before the cell phone era, of course. We stopped on the side of the road and tried to flag down the passing cars, but understandably there were practically none. We were resigned to stay there hungry and bored until we finally get somebody who agrees to take one of us to the next gas station, probably hundreds of miles away, then until he hitches a ride back…
However, after about half an hour an old clunker towing something passed us, but then turned around and came back. It contained a young couple who were moving across the country, with all their belongings in the car and towed behind. It turned out they were well aware of the scarcity of gas station on the road, and, their car being a gas-guzzler, they were also towing two huge canisters of gas. They shared it with us generously and refused to take money.
Many years ago I was extremely depressed and quit eating. It wasn’t exactly a stranger but a co worker (we were not friends) would make me lunch and several times a day remind me to take a few bites. Her kindness literally saved my life.
Not long after we moved to a new part of the country, I was waiting at school for my daughter to finish basketball practice. There was another mom parked next to me. I recognized her as a mom of one of my daughter’s classmates but I didn’t know her at all. When the girls finally came out of practice my car wouldn’t start because the battery was dead. My husband was out of town and I didn’t have any friends or neighbors to call. Without pause she told us to ride home with them and take their extra car. We arrived at their house and she handed me the keys to a new Mercedes S class and said to keep it as long as we needed it. I felt so alone in our new town and her incredibly generous offer really meant a lot to me.
I was flying alone to meet my then BF at the campus he was teaching in Montana when it started snowing and kept snowing. They canceled the flight I was on from Missoula to Bozeman. They also closed all rental car stands.
Several of us pleaded and begged and one of the kind car rental agents took me and several other passengers down the hill that the airport was on to the hotel to get a night’s sleep before trying again to fly the next day.
The adventure was much more pleasant after a sound night’s sleep in the hotel bed!
Small thing. When my girls were young, they tended to act up unexpectedly. Eg, laying in the grocery aisles and waving their arms. We were in the checkout line when they started pulling out the candy bars, making noise and generally being embarrassing. The older lady in front of me eyed them with a look that seemed annoyed. I started to melt. Then she leaned toward me and said, “Don’t worry. When my son was their age, he was worse.”
I repay that kindness when I can. They grew up to be nice, respectful young adults. Sometimes, another mom needs to know we get it.
One year, I went on a tour of one of the big Newport, Rhode Island mansions with my mom and my two-year-old (what was I thinking??). We were on the second floor when DS had a huge melt-down. Shrieking at the top of his voice. I carried him, kicking and screaming, to the front porch. I wanted to take him to the car but it was pouring rain about as hard as I’d ever seen it, so I just stood there. I was practically in tears. A nice man came up to us and tried to distract DS. Of course, it didn’t work, but I will always remember how kind he was.
Some of these stories are choking me up!
Strive to be the person on the other side of the kindness story being told. <3
Two Texas state troopers changed our tire for us when it blew out on the highway. They wouldn’t let us help.
Once I was by myself with an infant in a front pack and toddler S in a stroller. We were on a riverboat, going to the New Orleans zoo. I asked where the bathroom was and was pointed to a route down a flight of stairs. I begged the boat staff to watch my S in the stroller while I took a much needed bathroom break with the infant. S snoozed obliviously before, during and after my errand. I was so grateful to the staff.
@Meddy Great thread. It’s uplifting to hear about these kindness from strangers stories.
There have definitely been many times when strangers have been kind and helpful to me but one that sticks out was from my teen years. I was traveling alone in another country where I didn’t speak the language more than about 5 words and where many people didn’t speak English. I had gone over the latter part of my holiday break to visit a classmate and her family in her home country. Traveling home required that I take a flight from her major city to another major city to catch the flight back to the USA. It wasn’t until I was on the flight and having a nice conversation with the businessman sitting next to me, that he informed me that I was flying into a different airport than I needed to fly out of - the domestic airport instead of the international airport which was clear on the other side of a major metroplex. To make matters worse, our flight was delayed and arriving late resulting in little time to get to the other airport AND I was low on local currency/funds in general (careless 16 year old here L-) ). This nice stranger, who surely had other things to attend to, escorted me off the plane, through the airport, to the taxi stand and arranged a ride to the proper airport for me and paid for it! It was super, super kind and thoughtful. I’ve remembered that kindness ever since and have tried to pay it forward whenever I can assist some stranger who is in a jam especially young people.
Sweetest thing: an elderly woman came up to me as I was going out of the grocery store in the pouring rain and held her umbrella over me while I loaded the bags into my car trunk.
How 'bout kind things we’ve done for strangers? A number of years ago I was asked at the last minute to play tour guide to a group of visiting German pastors and lay people who were visiting our churches in PA but wanted to spend a day in NYC. I hadn’t been to the City in over 20 years but that’s a whole other story (planned host was sick). They were fascinated by the sky scrapers and wanted to go to the top of the Empire State Building, but decided not to when they found out the price - beginning of a two week stay in the States and hesitant to blow their budgets. On total impulse I took out my credit card and said I’d pay half the cost for the group of 15. Way more than I could afford to spend but it was one of those things I just had to do at the time, and never regretted it.
I think it was just after the year 2000 my D and I had just moved to a new apartment and that winter we had almost 3 feet of snow. There was no garage so we were parked outside. School had been closed all week and I needed to get to work but was stuck at home with my 5 year old D. We attempted to walk out to the car two times worried we would fall into the snow. I remember having difficulty pulling out leg out of the snow. We made it to the car and couldn’t even see the license plate to make sure that we were indeed cleaning our car. It was cold and windy so we would be out 10 minutes and then I would take D back in because she didn’t want to stay in the apartment alone. We went down again twice and I finally gave up thinking it would take a week to dig the car out at this rate. As we were defrosting back in our apartment I looked out the window and saw 4 missionary young boys cleaning up all the snow from my car. I think it was done in 20 minutes. I went down literally in tears expressing my gratitude. They wouldn’t take any money. All they asked is if I had some oranges so I quickly went back up and then brought down a bag that I had recently bought.
I called my mother once we got back into to our apartment and told her how I experienced a miracle just when I felt defeated and was ready to give up. Now that I live in a place with a garage space underneath I always count my blessings when I drive into the garage area so thankful to be able to park my car safely in a covered area. I am always reminded of that day when I was just ready to give up and complain about how I felt I had the weight of the world on my shoulders then. At that time it felt like that all the problems we were facing were coming crashing down at me all at once. We both stayed at home that day but then the next day I packed all my daughters things and she spent the day with me at the office while I did my work in my cube. There was a point where she slept in my lap while I typed some notes on the keyboard with one hand. After remembering those difficult times I think now how both of us have the strength and mental stamina to survive through anything.