At a time when so much feels chaotic, we’re leaning hard into love and kindness. With that in mind, we want to hear your stories about something nice a stranger did for you that left you with a smile. A positive note to uplift one another and remind us all that there really is so much good in the world. Did someone offer to help you carry your suitcase up the subway stairs recently? Hand you a tissue when you were publicly weeping alone on a bench?
It can be a recent example or something that happened 10 years ago that has stayed with you ever since. Share one line, or 300 words, about your experience. We look forward to hearing from you here—and if this sparks something that you continue writing off of this page, even better!
And… because our site is brand new and this prompt is all about good vibes, we’re going to add some extra incentive here: The response that gets the most likes will win a free year-long Narratively Academy subscription!
P.S.What else did you write this week? Our new community is all about encouraging each other to keep writing and celebrating successes. Be sure to check out the #WeeklyWin chat we posted yesterday. Accomplish a creative goal this week (big or small) that you’re proud of and want to share it? You can do so here! ♥️
I’d just finished a weekend spent volunteering with teenagers and was headed back to the airport. I was exhausted and focused on getting to my flight on time to fly back across the country to return to my life there when my phone rang. It was my mom: a beloved cousin, who had Cystic Fibrosis, had been finally told that a double lung transplant was necessary. It was something we’d known was coming but the reality of it was sudden, and serious, and my eyes filled with tears.
Just as I heard the news, the car in front of me stopped suddenly, and though I tried to brake with enough time to avoid it, I wound up hitting it – not hard, but with enough force that it surely had left damage. I knew it was my fault and was prepared to take responsibility, though in my mind, I was already scared of the cost both to the owner of the other car and to the rental car company, who I assumed would be brutal in charging me whatever they could. I was in graduate school, and had very little money.
We pulled off to the side of the highway – on the inside, which I now know not to do, with four lanes of traffic whizzing by in either direction – and I started apologizing as we got out of our cars. But as soon as I did, I also started crying: the worry for my cousin, the stress of money, the pressure of time to make my flight all overwhelming me.
The man who emerged from his truck, the other driver, then did the most amazing thing: he put his arms around me. We stood there, cars flying by us on either side, in an embrace I’ve never forgotten.
He wouldn’t take my insurance information or phone number when we parted. Instead, he wished me well, and we each drove away. Somehow, the rental car company didn’t notice the slight damage to my front bumper. Within an hour it was like none of that had happened. But it had, and all these years later, I still remember it.
I was travelling for the Salsa dance festival in Rovinj, Croatia, alone. One night, after the social party, I was walking back by myself on the street when I encountered a stalker, who insisted on giving me a ride on his scooter. I've been travelling there before; Croatia is generally a very safe and friendly country. I was trying to tell him in a nice way that I wanted to walk by myself, but he wouldn't give up. A young lady passed by us and said, 'Hey, I've been waiting for you for a while. Where have you been? Let us go. Then she came to me and put her arm around me, and dragged me away. This guy looked at us and walked away, too. It turned out she was also a dancer from London, coming here for the festival. We walked back to the old town together. I said maybe I was too friendly to make him stay around. She said, You could not blame yourself for that, there were many friendly people, but not him. I truly appreciated her kindness and wisdom in helping me out of that situation. I hope I can meet her again at the next festival.
He stopped typing. "Your last name," he said, louder this time. After a moment he came from behind the counter. "Can I help you?"
He saw me opening my backpack, my suitcase, he saw me take off my shirt and pull out what I had in my pockets. "Take it easy," he said. "It has to be somewhere."
"I had it with me on the bus," I said, my voice wavering.
He went back behind the counter and called a taxi for me. I had landed at Dubrovnik airport less than hour before and taken the bus into the city. I had paid with cash to the driver and now I could't find my wallet.
"I have nothing on me," I said to the taxi driver. "No cash no debit cards nothing."
He swatted my worries away and told me to get in the car. I rolled down the window and felt the air in my face. I pursed my lips and swallowed vomit. He began to tell me about how majestic the old town was, the story of the island where Maximilian of Habsburg had gone on a stroll. The islands I could visit on a day trip, maybe spend a night out there and see where Marco Polo had been born, don't let those Italians tell you otherwise he was born here he was Croatian.
"Hey," he said. "We'll find it."
I kept shaking my head.
He drove me to the place where all the public buses were parked over night. The fence was chained with a double lock. A guard came out from a tiny booth as the car approached it.
The driver got out of the car. "Come," he said. "You're going in."
I stood while they talked, the guard glancing at me. I could hear him speak but his lips barely moved. Then he took out a key and opened both locks. He dragged the fence to the side.
"The third on the left," the driver said, and pointed ahead. There were dozens of identical buses parked.
I ran.
I got on the bus and examined seat by seat. Nothing. I thought it was the wrong bus. Or the driver had seen it and kept it. I was breathing through my mouth.
Then I went on my knees and reached under the seats. In darkness I felt my fingers grabbing something bulky and leathery. In an instant muscles released all the fear and the tension, and I began to cry.
My sweat tasted like salt mixed with grit in the 95-degree heat, as I climbed the rock stairs toward the famed Nevada Falls, Yosemite’s finest hike. My still-healing right hamstring was on fire, the torn-meniscus left knee was aching, and my arthritic left shoulder said three miles of carrying a heavy backpack was too much. One more step and my family was at the top. Or what looked like the top. Or maybe what I dreamed was the top.
Except the trail lead downward, then up another monster hill. No dewy, misty falls in sight. The chiseled lady I met yesterday waved as she passed me, quads like overstuffed sausages, bounding toward Half Dome, a 16-mile day, where the real badass hikers go. Me, I’m a fake badass. I’d be lucky to get this 7-mile hike done with this sixty-something bod. My husband and three kids were waiting, patiently, but you’d never know I’d hiked every weekend for twenty years, including a hike of this length and difficulty last weekend.
Panting, I closed my eyes.
“Just one more rise, then you’re done,” said a male voice, calm and soothing. “Then it’s all beautiful views, and downhill. You’ve done a great job.”
A head of long brown curls mounted the rise to my left, his sinewy limbs moving confidently, his black hiking poles clicking like castanets on the white granite stairs. In seconds he was gone.
I never saw him again. Never learned his name. I squinted to find him, but only his words remained. The same words I tell my own kids.
Suddenly everything changed. Knees and hamstrings and arthritic joints found a new lubricant. It was if a winged chariot delivered me to the falls. In our family photos my kids smile, but I’m absolutely beaming.
We made our way home through drips of mountain rain from the cliff atop the John Muir Trail, where Muir himself and millions of others have trod before me. Where Half Dome and its cousins, like us, are worn by stress and time, yet still standing - wondrous.
I whispered to myself, “you’ve done a great job.” And meant it.
One day as a young college student in Manhattan, I stood online at a subway station when I heard the train rumble in and I thought, "Oh well, I'll have to wait for the next one."
"A ten pack, please," I told the man behind the plexiglass as I handed over a ten-dollar bill.
Suddenly I heard shrieking behind me.
"Bitch!" a man yelled. "The bitch caused us to miss the train!"
At first it didn't occur to me that I was "the bitch" in question.
"Cunt!" the male voice yelled. "You caused us to miss our train!"
Now I understood. The screamer was accusing ME of causing him to miss his train because I purchased a ten pack of tokens instead of ONE token. This made no sense but there was no point in arguing.
Instinctively, I tried to get away from him as fast as possible, putting a token in the turnstile and walking onto the subway platform.
He followed me, shrieking, "Bitch! Rich clit! I should KNOCK you! I should PUSH you onto the tracks!"
Panicked, I saw a man in a business suit sitting on a bench at the end of the platform and I headed towards him.
"Sit down next to me," he said quietly.
I did.
"Don't make eye contact with him," he murmured. "Don't respond."
I nodded and murmured, "All I did was buy a ten pack of tokens."
The shrieking man came closer, pacing like a caged animal, "Bitch! What are you saying?!"" He shouted, waving his arms wildly and staring at me.
I followed the man on the bench's suggestion and kept my gaze fixed at the ground and said nothing.
"The lady is with ME," the man next to me on the bench said firmly, staring the crazed man in the eyes.
The crazed man loped off and continued yelling from farther away.
“When the train comes in, you’re going to get in the car farthest away from him and do NOT make eye contact with him again if you see him. OK?” my savior said.
I nodded, followed his instructions, and made it back to my apartment safely.
And thus, this Good Samaritan, a stranger on a bench at the West Fourth Street Station in Manhattan in 1985, may have SAVED my life.
On a sunny day in October, 1966 my wife and I were sent by the U.S. Peace Corps for our first field training in Puerto Rico after having a short immersion course in Spanish. We were to be dropped in a small rural village and told to ask for a place to stay for a week. We were told not to offer to pay for anything and given some minimal background not to admire anything in a home because then your host would be obligated to give it to you. We found it hard to believe anyone in the village to which we were to be sent would give us housing with no payment or promise for payment. Can you imagine trying that in Los Angeles or any other city in the United States?
But the first people we encountered in Espiet, despite our limited Spanish, quickly found a home in the hills above the town. Teo and Marta had a home in the hills above the town and a room just for us with a double bed. Teodoro was a muscular dark Puerto Rican, clean-shaven, taciturn but kindly. Marta, an attractive woman probably in her early thirties, was more talkative and put up with our limited understanding of her Spanish. They had a farm with various crops and a lot of chickens. They fed us well, mostly rice and beans. I tried to help Teo, chopping wood, digging trenches for planting, and even using a machete to cut sugar cane. But I was a city boy and soon developed painful blisters on my hands. Renee helped in the kitchen and with the cleaning.
We had been warned in training to avoid well water, or any water except tap water for that matter. Well water could contain bilharzia (a serious flatworm disease). Our hosts assured us that the water from their faucets was from the central water system, which we had been told was safe. However, after living with this couple for almost a week we noticed Teo was pouring water from a bucket rather than the tap. “Que es eso?” (What’s that?) I asked. “The tap ran dry. The city needs to make repairs. This water is from our well.” We waited to get sick but, to our great relief, never came down with bilharzia. Teo and Marta did the best they could for us and we still remember that.
It all happened unexpectedly. You know, one day you’re living a carefree life and then the next day everything is turned upside down. People say there are silver linings, but I always found that to be annoying and dismissive. Yet, that’s what happened to me.
It goes like this: my mother gets sick; my father stays with me. My father initially exhibits early-stage dementia from Alzheimer’s. Five weeks in, my mother dies. My father’s dementia progresses exponentially afterward, as if my mother had taken a large part of him with her, leaving only the shell of who he was behind.
I am a photographer, so it made sense to share my photographic journey on Instagram, using the hashtag #GeorgeMyDadInTheHat, named for the many hats Dad wore. Surprisingly, it was the written thoughts, narratives, and interactions that became paramount. The irony is I was not a person who shared feelings with others easily, yet I shared our father-daughter journey without reserve. Why could I open my heart to those I did not know and would never meet?
My father loved his Instagram fame. I read him the comments and the places of origin from each stranger that shared their heartfelt thoughts. Far-flung places like Berlin, Paris, Cairo and Prague. One day he said, “Why would they care? I am just an ordinary man.” His self-awareness shined through his progressing veil of dementia. It was magical.
My father has long since passed. He never learned of my newfound love of writing and my success as a published author. If he were with me today, I know exactly what he would say. He’d assert he knew it was an eventuality all along and be reminiscent of us reading the Instagram posts about our team-effort of survival. Then he would remind me it was all the result of the kindness of strangers.
I lost my notebook, the core of my creative life. My flight was delayed and I took it out to make notes about the changes in my itinerary. There being none, I walked away from the bank of "help" phones.
When I landed I got a text from an unknown number. "Are you still here? Did you leave your notebook at Gate D9? I have it."
I was a thousand miles away.
"Then I'll mail it to you."
When I got home the notebook was in my mailbox with a lovely card and a hand-written note. I asked how I could offer thanks.
I had a big-oh birthday, and my husband Mike and I set aside some money to go to Greece, to the small island of Corfu for a month--woohoo!--the island where Lawrence Durrell and Henry Miller hung out during World War II. Since my husband and I are both writers, the place is truly meaningful to us. By two days in, we'd met two sisters who run a little restaurant called the Garden of Olives (something else in Greek), and we'd struck up a friendship. A week later, I was sick, and my husband went down and asked if there was some food he could buy that would be gentle on my stomach. Fannie and Maria said, "Of course," then made a special chicken soup for me. When Mike came back to get it, he tried to pay, and they said, "No, no! You won't pay us for this! You two were lovely and we'd like to do this for you." Mike said, "Please let me pay you," and they refused. It was an act of kindness so simple--so related to an open-hearted connection we made--and it instantly made us feel a part of the local community. We were there for weeks more, we met more of their family, we shared our days as we walked by, and we came to know new friends, simply because of their kindness. Fannie even shared her library card! It matters, these kindnesses, and it changes lives. It so warmed ours.
I was biking a familiar route in Brooklyn, rushing to make an overly expensive workout class, but I felt euphoric in a way that can only be achieved by biking with abandon. I imagined the long stretch of road was a race, and I was in friendly, unspoken competition with those other biking strangers on the same route.
Just as I celebrated a small victory of reaching a stoplight before anyone else, I realized my phone was missing. It must have flown out of my pocket, but when? And where? I was more than halfway to my destination, so circling back would surely make me too late for the class, and without my phone, I couldn't warn the friend who was meeting me there. I had pulled off to the side of the road since a mental spiral of this significance needed space, when one of the strangers I had been racing against pulled up next to me. "Is this yours?" he said, holding out my phone.
He started describing where he had witnessed it fall out, but the wave of relief was so great that I couldn't hear what he was saying. I thanked him profusely, in a way that was genuine enough to embarrass me by making plain how attached I was to this stupid device. He raised his hand to stop me as if to say, "No need to thank me, no need to explain." When the light turned green, I let him speed off as I composed myself. I was no longer in competition with the strangers around me; I was happily in community with them.
Just after dawn, I exited the train to a neighborhood that looked and smelled quite different than my own. Drunken folk straggled through the streets as the sun arose. I was very young, very white, and very new at my job. As I waited for the bus, a man emerged from the shadows with a request. "I need money to get home." I told him I had no change, but he drew closer and louder. "Change? I don't want change. I want money, you hear me?" A short brown woman with kind eyes appeared suddenly at my side. She spoke quietly to him. I don't recall what she said, but her tone was gentle. She made eye contact and respectfully encouraged him to move along. Here was a tiny woman in work clothes stepping into a dangerous situation in defense of a total stranger. He could have robbed her just as easily. But he walked down the dirty street instead. We boarded the bus with a sense of relief. I never saw her again, but to this day I wonder if she was a protective angel.
Triangle Park was nestled into the nice neighborhood by the lake, and was a place I frequented with my young son, Caleb. It wasn’t far from our studio apartment, and with the lake close by we could fill an afternoon. As a single dad to a kid with disabilities our daily sojourns to the park broke up the aloneness. Kids with disabilities don’t get invited on a lot of playdates. But we had a blast together.
Caleb’s differences, his appearance and demeanor, are obvious. He’s really, really small, but his thick dark head of hair and unibrow makes him look older. He’s non-verbal, and missing most of his right arm. Even though being with him in public can sometimes be hard, as Caleb’s presence can make some people uncomfortable, it has always been important to me that Caleb is not hidden away, unseen.
The only other people at the park that day were a mother and a young toddler. The little boy watched Caleb intently from across the small playground, as most kids do. Most times they just stare wide-eyed, though, because they’ve never seen someone like Caleb, but this boy watched with curiosity.
I noticed the boy go over to his mother, say something, and look back at us. His mother nodded. Then the boy picked up a small bag of snacks and began walking toward us. As he approached he gestured towards Caleb and asked, “Would he like a Cheeto?”
“Yes, I’m sure he would,” I said. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” said the boy with a smile, handed me a couple Cheetos from his bag, and walked back to his mother.
Rarely did anyone ever talk to Caleb and I when we were out and about, instead they avoided us as if Caleb were contagious. On that day we shared the park with a little boy with real compassion.
In the next few moments, though, the realities of having a kid with a disability bubbled up. Caleb sometimes struggles with eating, and right after he started eating a Cheeto he began to choke. It was quite a scene, with the little boy just having performed an incredible gesture of human-ness for a fellow kid watching as Caleb coughed over and over, his face turning a bright red.
Caleb settled down after a couple minutes and was fine, but I felt really bad, embarrassed really. We packed up and left the park.
Nearly 30 years later and I still think about how that little boy did something that, sadly, I have rarely experienced with Caleb. He saw through Caleb’s disabilities and just saw another little boy with whom maybe he could be friends, and he intentionally did something to show us that. I hope what happened didn’t deter that boy from continuing to be the kind of person that reached out to others, no matter the differences.
I had this ominous feeling well up inside me that something horrible was about to happen. A minute later, it came bursting out in a primal scream of searing pain. I went from a comfortable epidural bliss to full on, body wrenching pain as my epidural wore off like a light being switched off. I couldn't stop writhing and screaming as the pain took over any semblance of control I had. "You need to get yourself together and push, " my nurse insisted. Couldn't she see I was trying?
Clinging on to the bed rail, my husband on the opposite side of the room in a panic of his own, I kept trying to self talk myself into control. The embarrassing part was that I am an obstetrician and in my head knew exactly what was going on, what I needed to do, but my body was like a wild animal.
The next thing I knew, there was a hand on my shoulder and the kindest eyes in front of me. I have no idea where she came from. She wasn’t my nurse. She spoke to me softly, words I can’t remember to this day, but whatever it was, she had me entranced. She soothed me enough that I was able to roll on my back and start pushing. Thirty minutes later, I delivered a beautiful baby girl.
I don't know who this nurse was, she came and went like an apparition. I've thought about her often, amazed how her touch impacted me. I have wanted to thank her for the kind hand she gave me. I don't know how I would have survived that moment without her.
This is the extraordinary kind of trip that makes a passenger completely forget delays, emissions, and fares. I call it Fixed Link.
It was thirty years ago today: After bi-national festivities, celebrities, a crowd of cross-border runners completing The Bridge Run, wheels finally rolled across the sea.
As she touches her seat, the cross-border engine driver has a cheerful premonition of a special trip, apart from today’s anniversary cake and coffee; she’s paranormally receptive to the vibes of her high-velocity train passengers. When many have deals to sign, she can feel it in her stomach. When they’re out for downhill medals up North, she feels it in her knees. Today, she feels a tickling heat around her heart.
Her train to Copenhagen across The Bridge over the sound takes off from Stockholm. She sets on her mike and welcomes her five hundred passengers: “Thank you for flying our high-comfort connection to Denmark. The showpiece of bridge-engineering thirty years ago brings us close to each other even today.”
***
“Love U head over heels!” he texts his love while dashing up between two glassy lakes. She’s his former University classmate. By now, both of them are bilingual because of attraction, affection, and kinship of their mother tongues.
“Closely watching your arrival time, online. Meet you there ;-) ” she replies in a minute.
“Keen to meet you. I’m next-door to the driver.”
The landscape outside the window gets humdrum, as the train enters the Highland: Pinewood, rock, firs, rock, firs, firs...
At the highest point of the railroad, 1.020 feet above sea level, he feels closer: Simulations have shown that if it weren’t for stops and slowdowns near stations, inertial force plus vertical drop would suffice to take the train the remaining 170+ miles, from here to The Bridge, even without engines. That is, he’s approaching effortlessly, in a dance with pure forces of nature.
He walks a few steps to keep himself awake, but the tilting train makes him giddy. He spends some time reading, and looks out again an hour later. Fir trunks flickering past the window have become steel girders; he’s in the lower section of The Bridge, Broen, on the fixed link between Sweden and continental Europe. At ten PM in June, latitude 56, the girders glitter in horizontal sunbeams from northwest. Trains shrink this sea trip to ten minutes.
“C U soon.” he texts.
“Kiss U soon, zero-emission freak!” she answers in a second.
“WHICH pun intended?”
“Both. Water-powered electric train, and high-voltage staying power.”
“Love U, bike-city angel!”
He’s the first one to exit the train at the platform. In percolated daylight, he notices the thin blue dress that suits her so well. She’s waving.
He starts sprinting toward her, but he sees an arm in driver uniform passing him a substantial piece of anniversary cake on a small paper plate.
“This is my piece, please take it and eat it with your sweetheart. Welcome to pastry-and-coziness country,” he hears the driver say.
“Got it! I promise. Thank you so much!”
He darts to his sweetheart. She gives him a clinging-vine embrace, intertwined. They kiss, breathing a duet that becomes unison. Her eyes glitter, and she shines in a race with the orange sunset outside. While the trolley-clattering crowd catches up, the smack of a neck kiss echoes across the platform. Then he and she stick to his promise the engine driver, who glances through the windshield in a flush of job satisfaction.
My story is a little bit dark, but you'll understand at the end.
I had left the bar angry and was determined to walk the five miles back to base alone. A trucker pulled up next to me as I raged angrily down the highway, and asked if I'd like a ride. I stared at him warily and said, ‘no thank you.” He promised me he would keep me safe, and with that, I got in his cab.
It was then that I realized this man was not alone in the truck. There was another man who immediately saw me as fodder for his demented mind and started to try to seduce me. He asked if I wouldn't feel better lying down in the sleeper of the cab. Once he convinced me, i was so naive back then-he proceded to try and kiss me and i knew that wasnt sll he had on his mind, so i screamed out for the driver to get him off of me. It was at that point that the driver stopped the truck and kicked his friend out. Hetold me he was taking me safely to the base nd woukd pick thst dirtbag up on the way back, and he did exactly what he promised!
I ducked into a Dunkin’ Donuts one afternoon with my briefcase of client files and laptop, so I could sit and get some work done. I imagine I looked frazzled as I did most afternoons, knowing that the close of day was coming soon and I had an abundance of work, yet to get done for that day. The lady at the table next to me struck up a conversation about the weather and other small niceties. she asked me if I wanted a coffee and I said that I had just ordered one in the app and would be getting it from the counter soon. After I went and got my coffee, I returned to my seat at my table, and she handed me a five dollar bill and said here I’d like to give this to you. I said, “no, that’s OK, you don’t have to do that.“ She insisted, and this was a lady who did not appear to have a lot of money for her own means, but for some reason, on this day, she felt I was someone that needed somebody to be nice to her.
It is said that "the body keeps the score," meaning that trauma is stored in various areas of the body. As such, I try and release my trapped trauma by going to the gym and silently allowing myself to have as many awful memories as needed pop into my head while I am on the elliptical. I am not sure what I show on my face, but internally I know I am shaking, crying, and angry. I give myself this outlet and at the end of my time, I wipe off the machine and silently empathize with how scary that shit was, remind myself how great it is to have survived those difficult times.
One day an elder man, that is often there at the same time as myself but on the treadmill, walked over to me when I was still in the middle of my routine and said, "It looks like you practice Zen." I was somewhat thrown off because we had never spoken before, more just acknowledged each other's existence with head nods over the last several months. I told him thank you, and yes that is exactly what I am practicing, and he walked away. I not only felt seen, and a little embarrassed at the thought that perhaps someone could tell how hard I was working to be "Zen" instead of traumatized, but I also felt like my efforts must be paying off. By such a random statement, I felt encouragement to the depths of my soul to keep up my efforts. I felt that I wasn't alone in the struggle to move through trauma and to be the best version of myself.
At a small regional airport, a woman I’d never met before held me as I cried. (Her arms wrapped around me before I saw her.) She didn’t know who I was saying goodbye to. (She asked.) She didn’t know how long it’d be until we saw each other again. (She asked.) She had no way of knowing I had no one in this unfamiliar town to call or hug or cry on. (He was flying states away.) She had no way of knowing my mother has long been buried. (Unless somehow—by chance, by fate, by an act of God—she did.) She told me about the daughter she was sending off with well wishes and a swollen heart. I do not regret my display of emotion under the fluorescent lights. My only regret is not asking her name. (It’s almost more special that I didn’t.)
One day 14 years ago, I went to my favorite fancy grocery store. I only shopped there occasionally, because it was expensive, but its perfectly curated aisles provided a mini escape from the hellish divorce I was going through. It had a tight parking, but I was happy to see it wasn't crowded as I drove into the lot. I eased into an open space and began walking, when suddenly a driver appeared out of nowhere, laid on their horn, and almost ran me over as they sped by with their middle finger violently jerking at me out their window. I immediately felt accused, stupid and misunderstood. I had no idea what their beef was. Did I take their spot? Did I somehow cut them off? Had I done something wrong? It triggered all the same feelings of bewildered defensiveness that had led me to file for divorce. I fought back my tears and hurried inside to get what I needed feeling shaken and upset. The joy of going there ruined, now I just wanted to get back home as fast as I could. But when I got to my car, someone had left a beautiful pink rose with a note under one of my wipers. The note said, "Don't let that jerk get you down! You deserve to smile and have a nice day." I looked around to identify the kind soul, but everyone was just going about their business. An anonymous someone had done this for me just to be nice. Again I felt like crying, but in a good way. Someone had seen what happened to me and taken the time– and bought me a flower!!! – just to be kind. To right a wrong. It helped more than they could know.
Rather than fight distractions at home with a nearly full house, I opted to treat myself to a working breakfast. I had a lot to do and wasn't in the mood for chit chat, so I chose a small booth toward the back of the restaurant.
I love your eyeglasses, the young waitress said as she came to take my order.
Costco, I told her, looking down at my laptop.
She asked if she needed a membership to shop at Costco.
You do.
Where is the nearest Costco? she asked.
I looked up and then down again. She wasn't taking the hint. On Havana in Aurora.
There was something about her earnest gaze that drew me back to eye level. She sat down in the empty booth facing me and told me that she was born blind in one eye so for her, glasses are how she navigates the world.
I never would have guessed, I told her. Which was true.
That must have been so hard for you.
She shared more about her story as she took my order.
Later, when she handed me my check, she said, "this one's on me."
Lending an empathetic ear landed me a free breakfast. I was full all day.
The most amazing act of kindness I've seen had nothing to do with me, and was between two complete strangers.
I took the bus every day downtown to work. The interesting thing about taking public transit at the same time in the same place every day is that you see the same people, know them, and probably never speak to them.
Just a few stops down from where I got on the bus, a young girl also did. All these years later I couldn't tell you how old she was, maybe 12? She had a backpack with a broken zipper. It was obviously broken; the side not attached to the back straps always flapped open.
There was a whole other cast of characters who took the bus each day, one of which was a middle-aged man. He never talked and overall seemed rather unremarkable. Until one day the girl with the broken backpack got on the bus and sat down. This man stood up, handed her a new empty backpack, said a few words to her, and sat back down.
It was very clear that he didn't want the act of kindness acknowledged. He was not looking for congratulations or recognition. He saw a need, he had the means to help, and just did. I actually think he would be quite embarrassed to know I thought of him all these years later.
They never really spoke or connected after that, we all just continued to ride the bus together until one day we didn't. But it's been probably about 15 years later and I still think about both of them regularly.
A lost wedding ring among the dunes. A link to my wife. A link to my-late grandmother. That's what we searched for. That's what we gave up on. That's what we lost. Until, a stranger came to town.
I surf. When I do, my fingers contract, leaving my wedding ring slipping and sliding up and down my finger, precariously tempting fate with each wave.
To lose it would be devastating. Not solely because it's a symbol of love and commitment to my wife. But because it was created from a piece of jewelry that belonged to my late grandmother. One who died of a heart attack at 53. One whom I never met. One who existed exclusively via symbols and heirlooms and stories. A link to the person I had hoped to feel close to my entire life. At sea.
One day, it happened. After coming back from the beach, I noticed: it's gone. This link to my wife. To my grandmother. No more. My wife was upset and empathetic in equal measure, seeing how distraught I was at myself.
One week later, I got a Facebook message: "I think I found your ring."
My Aunt had seen a gentleman on the beach with a medal detector, told him what happened. For no good reason, he assumed responsibility for this quest, listening to the metronomic beep beep beep, searching for the ring of a person he'd never met. And one day, during his search, the beep's tempo went staccato signaling, "trash or treasure HERE."
In this case, it wasn't just treasure, but a link to two women who've shaped my life. One whom I know and love deeply. Another whom exists only in my heart.
Driving cross country in my aged Civic, it was sweet midnight respite to pull into a crowded desert parking lot off I-40 in New Mexico to share a comet stealing across the black expanse.
I stood beside a man who was using a nice set of binoculars while oohing and ahhing together, two pilgrims observing another.
He wordlessly handed me his glasses. My ahhs were enhanced.
I returned the simple gift, exhaled in all my grateful wonder, and returned to the car to gain a few hundred more miles before bedtime. I smiled myself to sleep that night.
I met Mary Jane on NextDoor when I asked for someone to bake a birthday spice cake like mom used to. We've had some interesting adventures thrift shopping.
On September 11, 2001, I was a federal employee taking crisis communications training at one of the two facilities outside Washington D.C. that, unbeknownst to me, had been designated by the President as Continuity of Government sites, where Cabinet members were to be rushed in the event of a terrorist attack. Instead of using their trained staff, however, they kicked us out to fend for ourselves. I was terrified. Five days later, after waiting in a six-hour line at Dulles airport trying to get home to Alaska, I made it to the boarding area by late afternoon, but there was another delay, so I went in search of food. Everything in the terminal was closed except for a small clothing store. “Do you know where there might be any food concessions open?” I asked the young woman at the register.
“Oh gee, I don’t think you’re going to find anything in this terminal,” she said.
There was no way I could get to another terminal with all the security in place. “Okay, thanks.” I turned to leave.
“Wait,” said the young woman. “When was the last time you ate?”
“Um, around six this morning, I think.”
She reached under the register and pulled out a paper bag. “My son made me this lunch today, but I think you need it more than I do.” She handed over a sandwich, and as I accepted it, we both reached for each other and hugged, tears in our eyes. “Thank you,” I whispered. “And thank your son.”
My phone lit up at 9 p.m. on a Sunday. A message from my supervisor. New location for the month. Twenty miles away.
I stared at it for a minute, didn't dare to complain and then tossed the phone face down on the bed.
The next morning hit hard. I peeled myself up like I’d slept in cement. My head buzzed with everything ahead: new branch, new people, new mess to figure out. I tapped open my phone again, checking Uber's estimated fare. The fare made my stomach sink. The trip costs three times what I’d earn that day. And I hadn’t even left the house yet.
The driver chatted on the way, mostly to himself. When he realized where we were going, he glanced at the map again and muttered, “Had I known, I wouldn’t have accepted. This is the middle of nowhere. Good luck finding a ride back.”
He wasn’t wrong. When we pulled in, the world looked like it had forgotten this corner. Dust clouds, forklifts crisscrossing like angry insects, giant trucks groaning through intersections and I felt I would be crushed anytime I thought of crossing the intersection by foot. An industrial zone cut off from everything else.
Inside, I asked the branch staff how they usually got out of here. “We drive with our cars,” one of them shrugged.
I cornered the security guard. “How do I get home?”
He pointed down the road. “Red bus comes every thirty minutes. It’ll take you out of the zone. Then you’ll need another bus. Or two.”
I nodded. I wasn’t paying for another Uber.
The sun had no mercy, it was 100 degrees and nothing but heat bouncing off concrete and unfinished roads. Dust stuck to my face. My shirt clung to my back. Hands felt slippery across my satchel. I stood on the edge of the road, staring down its long, empty stretch. No red bus. Not in 10 minutes. Not in 30.
This was going to be my life for the next month.
A horn snapped me out of it. A black matte car slowed in front of me. The window rolled down. A woman in sunglasses looked out.
“You waiting for someone?”
Cool air spilled out from her car. I just blinked.
“You won’t find a ride here,” she said. “I can drive you out of the zone if you want.”
My brain scrambled. What’s her deal? Why me? Is this a setup? But the alternative was standing in heat and diesel fumes until the sun gave out.
“Okay,” I said, easing into the passenger seat.
She worked at a car parts factory nearby. On the drive, she offered to pick me up every day. Said she passed that road anyway.
Since then, she texts me each evening. "Ready?" "Outside now." "Hop in."
We ride out together, just two strangers sharing a 30 mins ride of air-conditioned quiet. Sometimes we talk about her 3 daughters who won’t whatever she makes, or the way I still don’t know half my coworkers’ names. Nothing deep, nothing heavy. But in a day that wrings me out, that short ride feels like the only part that isn’t working against me.
It’s a sales office for life insurance products inside a bank, in Cairo’s industrial zone. My company figured it’s a goldmine. All those factories, all those workers.
In a moment of sheer delusion, I had convinced myself of a relationship growing in subtext. It wasn’t. I was a mess. It had been a rough year. I was in, what I thought at the time, the crux of it. I wasn’t. It would get worse, but this person offered me so much grace. Despite, in what I imagine was a confusing situation for them, they just kept on offering me space. I mean, I was a bitch you guys. Dirty looks. A refusal to believe id gotten it wrong. My own internal character assault on them. And they just held the line. They didn’t take it on (I hope), and they didn’t make it messier (for several people involved), and I’d imagine it would have been easier to behave otherwise. It taught me so much about the kind of person I wanted to be. How damaging “casual” offenses can really be to people’s whole lives. And how I wanted to move through life offering that same level of grace. I’ll probably never see this person again, and I doubt I’m still on their mind, but I hope they know they were in the right and I, my friends, was sorely in the wrong.
P.S. Another lesson: Just because you think it doesn’t make it true.
Some years ago, I was in the local supermarket buying my week’s worth of groceries for my family of four. My cart was full to the top. After processing through the line, I looked in my purse and realized I left my wallet at home! I was embarrassed and annoyed with myself for that and having to return all the food. A stranger behind me on line, quietly leaned over and said she would pay for the groceries. I thanked her profusely and said I would come right back to pay her, which I did. I never found out her name but I think she was an angel sent that day!
About ten years ago I was working as a vet tech in a town about 20 miles away. My car had broken down and I had to take the train. At the train station, there was no ticket booth, and the automated machine was not working. Once on the train an incredibly surly conductor berated me, and threatened to kick me off the train over a $2.50 fare. This train line is in a very affluent area, with a lot of NYC finance types aboard. Not one person would look at me as I cried, except a wonderful woman who immediately offered to pay my fare. And wouldn’t even accept my thanks. She was Latinx woman, spoke very little English, and helped me a random stranger. I think of this every time I see a news report of another illegal raid by the secret police here. Rolling up the best, hardest working, most generous folks in our country. All while megalomaniacal, narcissistic, felonious billionaires destroy our democracy from the inside out.
I started my trip with three hundred dollars in my pocket and picked up odd jobs that helped me get by. Once, I got paid just to pretend I was a sports enthusiast from some company that was trying to promote American football in Europe.
I was 22, broke, and on a night train to Calais, in Northern France, from some other city I can’t remember. Before cell phones and ATM machines, when broke college students backpacked across Europe, the cash you carried was the money you had, and mine was nearly gone. My plan was to grab an overnight ferry to Dover because I didn’t have enough for a hotel. I figured I’d sleep on the boat, make my way to London and crash with a friend til my flight left for the United States. I only needed to make it three more days.
As the train chugged toward the border, I chatted with a blond haired French guy who wanted to practice his English. I told him my plans, and he said the night ferry to Dover was discontinued.
Discontinued?
In case he was a psycho, I didn’t want this stranger to know I was shocked about the ferry, but inwardly, I panicked. Could I stay in the train station? I doubted it. There’d be no place to hide. A city park? I’d get arrested or assaulted or both. Should I turn myself into the police station? Would they charge me with vagrancy? A public restroom? What about the woods? Could I hike into the countryside and find a spot that would be safe? Would I dare to fall asleep? What would happen if the wrong person found me?
In Greece, where I’d whiled away a week or so among strangers, I’d fallen asleep on the beach, and my back was sunburned. Blisters leaked puss onto my tee shirt and screamed at me every time my backpack sloshed from side to side. The idea of wandering the streets of Callais all night while my backpack tortured my skin made me cringe.
The conversation faded and I stared out the train window, the scary black night whizzing by. When we came to a stop, I picked up my backpack. What I was going to do.
“You can stay at my house,” the French guy said. It was as if he had heard my silent question. His mom would be picking him up at the station, and he lived with her. “She’s really nice," he said. I didn’t know what I was walking into, but I figured my odds with the stranger were slightly better than the dark unknown.
That night, I slept in a beautiful clean bed, by myself. In the morning, I took a shower and smeared ointment into my red, swollen skin. I ate a bowl of hot oatmeal and drank tea with milk. Then the French guy and his mom gave me a ride to the ferry.
I’d used nearly all my money to buy fruit from a vendor in Greece and was living on it, rationing out apples and bananas as I made my way north, but at the station, I handed my fruit to the family. It was all I had. Then I hopped the ferry and got myself home.
That train ride was 40 years ago, and I’ve never forgotten the kindness of those strangers.
I placed a watermelon in the grocery cart of all things. Once it was in there, I thought, how will I ever get this thing out?
Navigating the store with my two-month-old in a front carrier, I was exhausted, hungry, and thirsty. I frantically added items we didn't need and with a half checked list, my son began wailing. There was no consoling him and in my own exhaustion, I cried too. As I began checking, the cashier came around to assist and also helped to place the bags in my cart. Through tears, I tried finding my car key but I couldn't reach the bottom of my bag with my son snug against my chest.
A kind older man wearing a flannel green shirt stood beside me. He told me he had three grandchildren and asked if he could help put my groceries in the car. “Please take care of your son, and let me do this,” he said. By the time I placed my baby in the car seat the man had already unloaded my groceries and was walking to return the cart, I turned the corner to the driver seat to say thank you and he had vanished. A year later, I still wonder if he was an angel.
Although this happened some years ago, I will always remember it. New to Atlanta,I had only been on my job about three or four months when my husband suffered the first of what ended up being two heart attacks and years of heart disease. Married without children and no family in the area, I waited in the 'Family' waiting room of Emory University Hospital, scared and alone. Only to look up to see my new supervisor coming toward me. A physician, she translated the medical info when the doctor spoke of my husband's prognosis. That day changed our status of employee and employer to 'family.' Carol Gee, author
A few years ago, I visited the DMV to update my home address on my driver's license. It was the last task I needed to complete after divorcing my serial-cheating husband of 36 years. (Another story for another day.)
After an indeterminable wait, my number was called. I stepped up to the assigned window, presented my old driver's license, and made my request. The clerk examined it carefully, glancing up at me two or three times with a puzzled look on her face, before asking for my new address.
As she was typing the information into her keyboard, she casually asked, "You aren't the same person anymore, are you?" I shook my head, no.
Not to risk being overheard by a by-the-books supervisor, she leaned forward and whispered, "You know, I can take a new picture for you if you would like, no charge."
The old photo was taken on my 60th birthday. I didn't think it was half-bad for my age, but I never turn down a freebie, so off to the photo booth we went. As I stood waiting, she motioned me to join her behind the counter, an odd request from a DMV employee, but I complied. She slowly turned the computer monitor around and presented me with a side-by-side comparison of the two photos. I gasped. The difference in my physical appearance was so striking, I could scarcely take it in.
The old me was a beaten-down and barely existing version of myself. How had I not noticed, or cared, before? The new me? She was ... dare I say? ... radiant! It was as if 4 decades of betrayal abuse had been erased with one click of the camera.
Smiling, she gently placed her hand on my shoulder. "Just look at you ... what a transformation! I've no idea what you went through, but it's clear how far you've come. You didn't think I was going to let you carry a reminder of that old person around with you anymore, did you?"
She handed me my new license, still warm from the lamination machine. I clasped hold of it and, with tears in my eyes, thanked her for her kindness.
On my way home from Paraguay, after adopting my six-month-old daughter, Maria, accompanied by my five year-old son, Ryan, we made an unexpected stop at the airport in Rio. It was midnight, and they needed to change planes. Having left Paraguay at 5 am, both kids and I were exhausted. As soon as we sat down, waiting for the next plane, the tears began to fall. I didn't know how I could manage carrying both kids, a diaper bag and carry-ons. When the announcement came to board the plane, all of a sudden a very elderly man appeared and motioned for me to follow him to the boarding area. He picked up Ryan and all of the bags, and off we went. He led us onto the plane and into our seats when he quickly disappeared. I'm sure he was an angel in disguise!
When I was eleven, my sister and I loved to roller skate for endless hours around the block that my grandparents lived on in Southern California. We were relatively poor at the time, so when we would near the corner Stop N Go on our sojourns through the neighborhood, our bellies would ache with envy watching the other children emerge with their cherry Icees, long red licorice ropes, and Mike & Ike gummies. The desire was real. One morning on our way up the street, as we glided along the cracks in the sidewalk, a man on a motorcycle drove by us and threw a handful of tiny yellow envelopes at us. Scared at first, being pelted by strange flying objects, once we opened them up, we realized they all had coins in them. We counted out five dollars and went to the Stop N Go for a sugar spree. It was like our prayers had been answered. Today, I look back at the bizarre experience thinking why would a man be carrying around coins in various envelopes and why would he throw them at us without stopping? Then I recall how much I was praying, which my Catholic grandmother instilled in me that I could do at anytime, while skating, and wonder to this day if I had my first quantum experience with manifestation?
Fifteen years ago, I found myself alone on a 14-hour train ride from Hanoi, in the north of Vietnam, to Hué, a small city located at the country’s north-south midway point. I was young, overeager to prove myself as a citizen of the world, and bent on learning lessons the hard way, as evidenced by the fact that I didn’t bring any food along for the ride, and had barely eaten anything beforehand. Unwilling to test my stomach against the questionably hygienic-looking food cart that rolled by occasionally, I decided to invoke my German Catholic upbringing and endure the hunger.
In the seat to my left was an older woman who could not have seemed less pleased to have me as her travel companion. Like most of the passengers on the train, she looked like a commuter who went in and out of Hanoi for work every week, and had a large collection of bags and suitcases shoved anywhere they would fit, including under my feet. I wasn’t thrilled about cramming my 6’6” frame into an already cramped seating area, but it was what it was. When I tried to greet the woman in what must have been god-awful Vietnamese, I was met with an icy stare and silence. During the first few hours of the trip, whenever I looked out the window to her left, I detected a distinct aura of “don’t.”
All of which was fine until it wasn't. Nine hours into the trip, my resolve began to wane as my hunger grew. I was uncomfortable, sweating profusely, and growing impatient. Offended, even. What was her problem? I didn’t have any luggage shoved underneath her feet. I wasn’t doing anything but trying to explore her country. I was a traveler. Here to expand my mind and learn about different cultures and people. As my thoughts blurred, swaying deliriously between indignation and random musings to pass the time, I felt a tap on my left shoulder. It was her, I thought, bracing myself for a confrontation. What the hell did she want? Preparing my most defiant expression, I turned to face her.
When I met her gaze, her eyes gestured to her extended hand, which she had placed near my lower left arm. In it rested a foot-long sandwich that she had prepared using one of her many mysterious boxes. She motioned it toward me, and though it took me a moment to understand what was happening, I accepted it, my face contorting into what must have been a thoroughly bizarre smile. She smiled back, picking up a sandwich she had prepared for herself, and we ate together, enjoying each other’s strange company in an impossibly comfortable silence.
A couple of hours later, my stop arrived. I gathered my things and told the woman “thank you” in Vietnamese to the best of my non-ability. She smiled and nodded in return. To this day, it remains the best sandwich I've ever eaten, and she remains my favorite memory of that wonderful country.
It was one of those steamy days in New York City when the heat radiates off of every surface. The sun was hiding behind a haze of humidity but clearly visible as I submerged into the subway station. After a 20-minute ride, I resurfaced to see the skies had opened up and, while welcome for its cooling quality, I had failed to anticipate its arrival and had no umbrella. I shrugged and started what I expected to be an uncomfortable walk two avenues east and a few blocks south. Suddenly, the rain stopped falling on my shoulders and I noticed a stretch of black nylon moving above my head. An umbrella. I turned to see a man next to me. “And you are? I asked, attempting to find out who the stranger was. “Your knight in shining armor.” If the scene was from a movie, it likely would have resulted in a montage of scenes from a torrid romance. But, alas, he was just a nice guy.
This is less about random acts of kindness, but more about a flood of wonderful acts by inspiring people. Please read the profiles at The Practical Altruism Project and you'll read about individuals in the fields of law, medicine, the arts, tech, disaster relief, etc., doing their part to make the world a better place. practicalaltruism.com
I’d just finished a weekend spent volunteering with teenagers and was headed back to the airport. I was exhausted and focused on getting to my flight on time to fly back across the country to return to my life there when my phone rang. It was my mom: a beloved cousin, who had Cystic Fibrosis, had been finally told that a double lung transplant was necessary. It was something we’d known was coming but the reality of it was sudden, and serious, and my eyes filled with tears.
Just as I heard the news, the car in front of me stopped suddenly, and though I tried to brake with enough time to avoid it, I wound up hitting it – not hard, but with enough force that it surely had left damage. I knew it was my fault and was prepared to take responsibility, though in my mind, I was already scared of the cost both to the owner of the other car and to the rental car company, who I assumed would be brutal in charging me whatever they could. I was in graduate school, and had very little money.
We pulled off to the side of the highway – on the inside, which I now know not to do, with four lanes of traffic whizzing by in either direction – and I started apologizing as we got out of our cars. But as soon as I did, I also started crying: the worry for my cousin, the stress of money, the pressure of time to make my flight all overwhelming me.
The man who emerged from his truck, the other driver, then did the most amazing thing: he put his arms around me. We stood there, cars flying by us on either side, in an embrace I’ve never forgotten.
He wouldn’t take my insurance information or phone number when we parted. Instead, he wished me well, and we each drove away. Somehow, the rental car company didn’t notice the slight damage to my front bumper. Within an hour it was like none of that had happened. But it had, and all these years later, I still remember it.
I was travelling for the Salsa dance festival in Rovinj, Croatia, alone. One night, after the social party, I was walking back by myself on the street when I encountered a stalker, who insisted on giving me a ride on his scooter. I've been travelling there before; Croatia is generally a very safe and friendly country. I was trying to tell him in a nice way that I wanted to walk by myself, but he wouldn't give up. A young lady passed by us and said, 'Hey, I've been waiting for you for a while. Where have you been? Let us go. Then she came to me and put her arm around me, and dragged me away. This guy looked at us and walked away, too. It turned out she was also a dancer from London, coming here for the festival. We walked back to the old town together. I said maybe I was too friendly to make him stay around. She said, You could not blame yourself for that, there were many friendly people, but not him. I truly appreciated her kindness and wisdom in helping me out of that situation. I hope I can meet her again at the next festival.
He stopped typing. "Your last name," he said, louder this time. After a moment he came from behind the counter. "Can I help you?"
He saw me opening my backpack, my suitcase, he saw me take off my shirt and pull out what I had in my pockets. "Take it easy," he said. "It has to be somewhere."
"I had it with me on the bus," I said, my voice wavering.
He went back behind the counter and called a taxi for me. I had landed at Dubrovnik airport less than hour before and taken the bus into the city. I had paid with cash to the driver and now I could't find my wallet.
"I have nothing on me," I said to the taxi driver. "No cash no debit cards nothing."
He swatted my worries away and told me to get in the car. I rolled down the window and felt the air in my face. I pursed my lips and swallowed vomit. He began to tell me about how majestic the old town was, the story of the island where Maximilian of Habsburg had gone on a stroll. The islands I could visit on a day trip, maybe spend a night out there and see where Marco Polo had been born, don't let those Italians tell you otherwise he was born here he was Croatian.
"Hey," he said. "We'll find it."
I kept shaking my head.
He drove me to the place where all the public buses were parked over night. The fence was chained with a double lock. A guard came out from a tiny booth as the car approached it.
The driver got out of the car. "Come," he said. "You're going in."
I stood while they talked, the guard glancing at me. I could hear him speak but his lips barely moved. Then he took out a key and opened both locks. He dragged the fence to the side.
"The third on the left," the driver said, and pointed ahead. There were dozens of identical buses parked.
I ran.
I got on the bus and examined seat by seat. Nothing. I thought it was the wrong bus. Or the driver had seen it and kept it. I was breathing through my mouth.
Then I went on my knees and reached under the seats. In darkness I felt my fingers grabbing something bulky and leathery. In an instant muscles released all the fear and the tension, and I began to cry.
My sweat tasted like salt mixed with grit in the 95-degree heat, as I climbed the rock stairs toward the famed Nevada Falls, Yosemite’s finest hike. My still-healing right hamstring was on fire, the torn-meniscus left knee was aching, and my arthritic left shoulder said three miles of carrying a heavy backpack was too much. One more step and my family was at the top. Or what looked like the top. Or maybe what I dreamed was the top.
Except the trail lead downward, then up another monster hill. No dewy, misty falls in sight. The chiseled lady I met yesterday waved as she passed me, quads like overstuffed sausages, bounding toward Half Dome, a 16-mile day, where the real badass hikers go. Me, I’m a fake badass. I’d be lucky to get this 7-mile hike done with this sixty-something bod. My husband and three kids were waiting, patiently, but you’d never know I’d hiked every weekend for twenty years, including a hike of this length and difficulty last weekend.
Panting, I closed my eyes.
“Just one more rise, then you’re done,” said a male voice, calm and soothing. “Then it’s all beautiful views, and downhill. You’ve done a great job.”
A head of long brown curls mounted the rise to my left, his sinewy limbs moving confidently, his black hiking poles clicking like castanets on the white granite stairs. In seconds he was gone.
I never saw him again. Never learned his name. I squinted to find him, but only his words remained. The same words I tell my own kids.
Suddenly everything changed. Knees and hamstrings and arthritic joints found a new lubricant. It was if a winged chariot delivered me to the falls. In our family photos my kids smile, but I’m absolutely beaming.
We made our way home through drips of mountain rain from the cliff atop the John Muir Trail, where Muir himself and millions of others have trod before me. Where Half Dome and its cousins, like us, are worn by stress and time, yet still standing - wondrous.
I whispered to myself, “you’ve done a great job.” And meant it.
One day as a young college student in Manhattan, I stood online at a subway station when I heard the train rumble in and I thought, "Oh well, I'll have to wait for the next one."
"A ten pack, please," I told the man behind the plexiglass as I handed over a ten-dollar bill.
Suddenly I heard shrieking behind me.
"Bitch!" a man yelled. "The bitch caused us to miss the train!"
At first it didn't occur to me that I was "the bitch" in question.
"Cunt!" the male voice yelled. "You caused us to miss our train!"
Now I understood. The screamer was accusing ME of causing him to miss his train because I purchased a ten pack of tokens instead of ONE token. This made no sense but there was no point in arguing.
Instinctively, I tried to get away from him as fast as possible, putting a token in the turnstile and walking onto the subway platform.
He followed me, shrieking, "Bitch! Rich clit! I should KNOCK you! I should PUSH you onto the tracks!"
Panicked, I saw a man in a business suit sitting on a bench at the end of the platform and I headed towards him.
"Sit down next to me," he said quietly.
I did.
"Don't make eye contact with him," he murmured. "Don't respond."
I nodded and murmured, "All I did was buy a ten pack of tokens."
The shrieking man came closer, pacing like a caged animal, "Bitch! What are you saying?!"" He shouted, waving his arms wildly and staring at me.
I followed the man on the bench's suggestion and kept my gaze fixed at the ground and said nothing.
"The lady is with ME," the man next to me on the bench said firmly, staring the crazed man in the eyes.
The crazed man loped off and continued yelling from farther away.
“When the train comes in, you’re going to get in the car farthest away from him and do NOT make eye contact with him again if you see him. OK?” my savior said.
I nodded, followed his instructions, and made it back to my apartment safely.
And thus, this Good Samaritan, a stranger on a bench at the West Fourth Street Station in Manhattan in 1985, may have SAVED my life.
On a sunny day in October, 1966 my wife and I were sent by the U.S. Peace Corps for our first field training in Puerto Rico after having a short immersion course in Spanish. We were to be dropped in a small rural village and told to ask for a place to stay for a week. We were told not to offer to pay for anything and given some minimal background not to admire anything in a home because then your host would be obligated to give it to you. We found it hard to believe anyone in the village to which we were to be sent would give us housing with no payment or promise for payment. Can you imagine trying that in Los Angeles or any other city in the United States?
But the first people we encountered in Espiet, despite our limited Spanish, quickly found a home in the hills above the town. Teo and Marta had a home in the hills above the town and a room just for us with a double bed. Teodoro was a muscular dark Puerto Rican, clean-shaven, taciturn but kindly. Marta, an attractive woman probably in her early thirties, was more talkative and put up with our limited understanding of her Spanish. They had a farm with various crops and a lot of chickens. They fed us well, mostly rice and beans. I tried to help Teo, chopping wood, digging trenches for planting, and even using a machete to cut sugar cane. But I was a city boy and soon developed painful blisters on my hands. Renee helped in the kitchen and with the cleaning.
We had been warned in training to avoid well water, or any water except tap water for that matter. Well water could contain bilharzia (a serious flatworm disease). Our hosts assured us that the water from their faucets was from the central water system, which we had been told was safe. However, after living with this couple for almost a week we noticed Teo was pouring water from a bucket rather than the tap. “Que es eso?” (What’s that?) I asked. “The tap ran dry. The city needs to make repairs. This water is from our well.” We waited to get sick but, to our great relief, never came down with bilharzia. Teo and Marta did the best they could for us and we still remember that.
It all happened unexpectedly. You know, one day you’re living a carefree life and then the next day everything is turned upside down. People say there are silver linings, but I always found that to be annoying and dismissive. Yet, that’s what happened to me.
It goes like this: my mother gets sick; my father stays with me. My father initially exhibits early-stage dementia from Alzheimer’s. Five weeks in, my mother dies. My father’s dementia progresses exponentially afterward, as if my mother had taken a large part of him with her, leaving only the shell of who he was behind.
I am a photographer, so it made sense to share my photographic journey on Instagram, using the hashtag #GeorgeMyDadInTheHat, named for the many hats Dad wore. Surprisingly, it was the written thoughts, narratives, and interactions that became paramount. The irony is I was not a person who shared feelings with others easily, yet I shared our father-daughter journey without reserve. Why could I open my heart to those I did not know and would never meet?
My father loved his Instagram fame. I read him the comments and the places of origin from each stranger that shared their heartfelt thoughts. Far-flung places like Berlin, Paris, Cairo and Prague. One day he said, “Why would they care? I am just an ordinary man.” His self-awareness shined through his progressing veil of dementia. It was magical.
My father has long since passed. He never learned of my newfound love of writing and my success as a published author. If he were with me today, I know exactly what he would say. He’d assert he knew it was an eventuality all along and be reminiscent of us reading the Instagram posts about our team-effort of survival. Then he would remind me it was all the result of the kindness of strangers.
I lost my notebook, the core of my creative life. My flight was delayed and I took it out to make notes about the changes in my itinerary. There being none, I walked away from the bank of "help" phones.
When I landed I got a text from an unknown number. "Are you still here? Did you leave your notebook at Gate D9? I have it."
I was a thousand miles away.
"Then I'll mail it to you."
When I got home the notebook was in my mailbox with a lovely card and a hand-written note. I asked how I could offer thanks.
"Pay it forward."
Which I did.
Ooh, this is every writer's nightmare. What a relief and what a kind thing to do—to realize how important it must have been.
I had a big-oh birthday, and my husband Mike and I set aside some money to go to Greece, to the small island of Corfu for a month--woohoo!--the island where Lawrence Durrell and Henry Miller hung out during World War II. Since my husband and I are both writers, the place is truly meaningful to us. By two days in, we'd met two sisters who run a little restaurant called the Garden of Olives (something else in Greek), and we'd struck up a friendship. A week later, I was sick, and my husband went down and asked if there was some food he could buy that would be gentle on my stomach. Fannie and Maria said, "Of course," then made a special chicken soup for me. When Mike came back to get it, he tried to pay, and they said, "No, no! You won't pay us for this! You two were lovely and we'd like to do this for you." Mike said, "Please let me pay you," and they refused. It was an act of kindness so simple--so related to an open-hearted connection we made--and it instantly made us feel a part of the local community. We were there for weeks more, we met more of their family, we shared our days as we walked by, and we came to know new friends, simply because of their kindness. Fannie even shared her library card! It matters, these kindnesses, and it changes lives. It so warmed ours.
I was biking a familiar route in Brooklyn, rushing to make an overly expensive workout class, but I felt euphoric in a way that can only be achieved by biking with abandon. I imagined the long stretch of road was a race, and I was in friendly, unspoken competition with those other biking strangers on the same route.
Just as I celebrated a small victory of reaching a stoplight before anyone else, I realized my phone was missing. It must have flown out of my pocket, but when? And where? I was more than halfway to my destination, so circling back would surely make me too late for the class, and without my phone, I couldn't warn the friend who was meeting me there. I had pulled off to the side of the road since a mental spiral of this significance needed space, when one of the strangers I had been racing against pulled up next to me. "Is this yours?" he said, holding out my phone.
He started describing where he had witnessed it fall out, but the wave of relief was so great that I couldn't hear what he was saying. I thanked him profusely, in a way that was genuine enough to embarrass me by making plain how attached I was to this stupid device. He raised his hand to stop me as if to say, "No need to thank me, no need to explain." When the light turned green, I let him speed off as I composed myself. I was no longer in competition with the strangers around me; I was happily in community with them.
Just after dawn, I exited the train to a neighborhood that looked and smelled quite different than my own. Drunken folk straggled through the streets as the sun arose. I was very young, very white, and very new at my job. As I waited for the bus, a man emerged from the shadows with a request. "I need money to get home." I told him I had no change, but he drew closer and louder. "Change? I don't want change. I want money, you hear me?" A short brown woman with kind eyes appeared suddenly at my side. She spoke quietly to him. I don't recall what she said, but her tone was gentle. She made eye contact and respectfully encouraged him to move along. Here was a tiny woman in work clothes stepping into a dangerous situation in defense of a total stranger. He could have robbed her just as easily. But he walked down the dirty street instead. We boarded the bus with a sense of relief. I never saw her again, but to this day I wonder if she was a protective angel.
Triangle Park was nestled into the nice neighborhood by the lake, and was a place I frequented with my young son, Caleb. It wasn’t far from our studio apartment, and with the lake close by we could fill an afternoon. As a single dad to a kid with disabilities our daily sojourns to the park broke up the aloneness. Kids with disabilities don’t get invited on a lot of playdates. But we had a blast together.
Caleb’s differences, his appearance and demeanor, are obvious. He’s really, really small, but his thick dark head of hair and unibrow makes him look older. He’s non-verbal, and missing most of his right arm. Even though being with him in public can sometimes be hard, as Caleb’s presence can make some people uncomfortable, it has always been important to me that Caleb is not hidden away, unseen.
The only other people at the park that day were a mother and a young toddler. The little boy watched Caleb intently from across the small playground, as most kids do. Most times they just stare wide-eyed, though, because they’ve never seen someone like Caleb, but this boy watched with curiosity.
I noticed the boy go over to his mother, say something, and look back at us. His mother nodded. Then the boy picked up a small bag of snacks and began walking toward us. As he approached he gestured towards Caleb and asked, “Would he like a Cheeto?”
“Yes, I’m sure he would,” I said. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” said the boy with a smile, handed me a couple Cheetos from his bag, and walked back to his mother.
Rarely did anyone ever talk to Caleb and I when we were out and about, instead they avoided us as if Caleb were contagious. On that day we shared the park with a little boy with real compassion.
In the next few moments, though, the realities of having a kid with a disability bubbled up. Caleb sometimes struggles with eating, and right after he started eating a Cheeto he began to choke. It was quite a scene, with the little boy just having performed an incredible gesture of human-ness for a fellow kid watching as Caleb coughed over and over, his face turning a bright red.
Caleb settled down after a couple minutes and was fine, but I felt really bad, embarrassed really. We packed up and left the park.
Nearly 30 years later and I still think about how that little boy did something that, sadly, I have rarely experienced with Caleb. He saw through Caleb’s disabilities and just saw another little boy with whom maybe he could be friends, and he intentionally did something to show us that. I hope what happened didn’t deter that boy from continuing to be the kind of person that reached out to others, no matter the differences.
22 years ago, but still so fresh :
I had this ominous feeling well up inside me that something horrible was about to happen. A minute later, it came bursting out in a primal scream of searing pain. I went from a comfortable epidural bliss to full on, body wrenching pain as my epidural wore off like a light being switched off. I couldn't stop writhing and screaming as the pain took over any semblance of control I had. "You need to get yourself together and push, " my nurse insisted. Couldn't she see I was trying?
Clinging on to the bed rail, my husband on the opposite side of the room in a panic of his own, I kept trying to self talk myself into control. The embarrassing part was that I am an obstetrician and in my head knew exactly what was going on, what I needed to do, but my body was like a wild animal.
The next thing I knew, there was a hand on my shoulder and the kindest eyes in front of me. I have no idea where she came from. She wasn’t my nurse. She spoke to me softly, words I can’t remember to this day, but whatever it was, she had me entranced. She soothed me enough that I was able to roll on my back and start pushing. Thirty minutes later, I delivered a beautiful baby girl.
I don't know who this nurse was, she came and went like an apparition. I've thought about her often, amazed how her touch impacted me. I have wanted to thank her for the kind hand she gave me. I don't know how I would have survived that moment without her.
This is the extraordinary kind of trip that makes a passenger completely forget delays, emissions, and fares. I call it Fixed Link.
It was thirty years ago today: After bi-national festivities, celebrities, a crowd of cross-border runners completing The Bridge Run, wheels finally rolled across the sea.
As she touches her seat, the cross-border engine driver has a cheerful premonition of a special trip, apart from today’s anniversary cake and coffee; she’s paranormally receptive to the vibes of her high-velocity train passengers. When many have deals to sign, she can feel it in her stomach. When they’re out for downhill medals up North, she feels it in her knees. Today, she feels a tickling heat around her heart.
Her train to Copenhagen across The Bridge over the sound takes off from Stockholm. She sets on her mike and welcomes her five hundred passengers: “Thank you for flying our high-comfort connection to Denmark. The showpiece of bridge-engineering thirty years ago brings us close to each other even today.”
***
“Love U head over heels!” he texts his love while dashing up between two glassy lakes. She’s his former University classmate. By now, both of them are bilingual because of attraction, affection, and kinship of their mother tongues.
“Closely watching your arrival time, online. Meet you there ;-) ” she replies in a minute.
“Keen to meet you. I’m next-door to the driver.”
The landscape outside the window gets humdrum, as the train enters the Highland: Pinewood, rock, firs, rock, firs, firs...
At the highest point of the railroad, 1.020 feet above sea level, he feels closer: Simulations have shown that if it weren’t for stops and slowdowns near stations, inertial force plus vertical drop would suffice to take the train the remaining 170+ miles, from here to The Bridge, even without engines. That is, he’s approaching effortlessly, in a dance with pure forces of nature.
He walks a few steps to keep himself awake, but the tilting train makes him giddy. He spends some time reading, and looks out again an hour later. Fir trunks flickering past the window have become steel girders; he’s in the lower section of The Bridge, Broen, on the fixed link between Sweden and continental Europe. At ten PM in June, latitude 56, the girders glitter in horizontal sunbeams from northwest. Trains shrink this sea trip to ten minutes.
“C U soon.” he texts.
“Kiss U soon, zero-emission freak!” she answers in a second.
“WHICH pun intended?”
“Both. Water-powered electric train, and high-voltage staying power.”
“Love U, bike-city angel!”
He’s the first one to exit the train at the platform. In percolated daylight, he notices the thin blue dress that suits her so well. She’s waving.
He starts sprinting toward her, but he sees an arm in driver uniform passing him a substantial piece of anniversary cake on a small paper plate.
“This is my piece, please take it and eat it with your sweetheart. Welcome to pastry-and-coziness country,” he hears the driver say.
“Got it! I promise. Thank you so much!”
He darts to his sweetheart. She gives him a clinging-vine embrace, intertwined. They kiss, breathing a duet that becomes unison. Her eyes glitter, and she shines in a race with the orange sunset outside. While the trolley-clattering crowd catches up, the smack of a neck kiss echoes across the platform. Then he and she stick to his promise the engine driver, who glances through the windshield in a flush of job satisfaction.
My story is a little bit dark, but you'll understand at the end.
I had left the bar angry and was determined to walk the five miles back to base alone. A trucker pulled up next to me as I raged angrily down the highway, and asked if I'd like a ride. I stared at him warily and said, ‘no thank you.” He promised me he would keep me safe, and with that, I got in his cab.
It was then that I realized this man was not alone in the truck. There was another man who immediately saw me as fodder for his demented mind and started to try to seduce me. He asked if I wouldn't feel better lying down in the sleeper of the cab. Once he convinced me, i was so naive back then-he proceded to try and kiss me and i knew that wasnt sll he had on his mind, so i screamed out for the driver to get him off of me. It was at that point that the driver stopped the truck and kicked his friend out. Hetold me he was taking me safely to the base nd woukd pick thst dirtbag up on the way back, and he did exactly what he promised!
I ducked into a Dunkin’ Donuts one afternoon with my briefcase of client files and laptop, so I could sit and get some work done. I imagine I looked frazzled as I did most afternoons, knowing that the close of day was coming soon and I had an abundance of work, yet to get done for that day. The lady at the table next to me struck up a conversation about the weather and other small niceties. she asked me if I wanted a coffee and I said that I had just ordered one in the app and would be getting it from the counter soon. After I went and got my coffee, I returned to my seat at my table, and she handed me a five dollar bill and said here I’d like to give this to you. I said, “no, that’s OK, you don’t have to do that.“ She insisted, and this was a lady who did not appear to have a lot of money for her own means, but for some reason, on this day, she felt I was someone that needed somebody to be nice to her.
It is said that "the body keeps the score," meaning that trauma is stored in various areas of the body. As such, I try and release my trapped trauma by going to the gym and silently allowing myself to have as many awful memories as needed pop into my head while I am on the elliptical. I am not sure what I show on my face, but internally I know I am shaking, crying, and angry. I give myself this outlet and at the end of my time, I wipe off the machine and silently empathize with how scary that shit was, remind myself how great it is to have survived those difficult times.
One day an elder man, that is often there at the same time as myself but on the treadmill, walked over to me when I was still in the middle of my routine and said, "It looks like you practice Zen." I was somewhat thrown off because we had never spoken before, more just acknowledged each other's existence with head nods over the last several months. I told him thank you, and yes that is exactly what I am practicing, and he walked away. I not only felt seen, and a little embarrassed at the thought that perhaps someone could tell how hard I was working to be "Zen" instead of traumatized, but I also felt like my efforts must be paying off. By such a random statement, I felt encouragement to the depths of my soul to keep up my efforts. I felt that I wasn't alone in the struggle to move through trauma and to be the best version of myself.
At a small regional airport, a woman I’d never met before held me as I cried. (Her arms wrapped around me before I saw her.) She didn’t know who I was saying goodbye to. (She asked.) She didn’t know how long it’d be until we saw each other again. (She asked.) She had no way of knowing I had no one in this unfamiliar town to call or hug or cry on. (He was flying states away.) She had no way of knowing my mother has long been buried. (Unless somehow—by chance, by fate, by an act of God—she did.) She told me about the daughter she was sending off with well wishes and a swollen heart. I do not regret my display of emotion under the fluorescent lights. My only regret is not asking her name. (It’s almost more special that I didn’t.)
One day 14 years ago, I went to my favorite fancy grocery store. I only shopped there occasionally, because it was expensive, but its perfectly curated aisles provided a mini escape from the hellish divorce I was going through. It had a tight parking, but I was happy to see it wasn't crowded as I drove into the lot. I eased into an open space and began walking, when suddenly a driver appeared out of nowhere, laid on their horn, and almost ran me over as they sped by with their middle finger violently jerking at me out their window. I immediately felt accused, stupid and misunderstood. I had no idea what their beef was. Did I take their spot? Did I somehow cut them off? Had I done something wrong? It triggered all the same feelings of bewildered defensiveness that had led me to file for divorce. I fought back my tears and hurried inside to get what I needed feeling shaken and upset. The joy of going there ruined, now I just wanted to get back home as fast as I could. But when I got to my car, someone had left a beautiful pink rose with a note under one of my wipers. The note said, "Don't let that jerk get you down! You deserve to smile and have a nice day." I looked around to identify the kind soul, but everyone was just going about their business. An anonymous someone had done this for me just to be nice. Again I felt like crying, but in a good way. Someone had seen what happened to me and taken the time– and bought me a flower!!! – just to be kind. To right a wrong. It helped more than they could know.
Rather than fight distractions at home with a nearly full house, I opted to treat myself to a working breakfast. I had a lot to do and wasn't in the mood for chit chat, so I chose a small booth toward the back of the restaurant.
I love your eyeglasses, the young waitress said as she came to take my order.
Costco, I told her, looking down at my laptop.
She asked if she needed a membership to shop at Costco.
You do.
Where is the nearest Costco? she asked.
I looked up and then down again. She wasn't taking the hint. On Havana in Aurora.
There was something about her earnest gaze that drew me back to eye level. She sat down in the empty booth facing me and told me that she was born blind in one eye so for her, glasses are how she navigates the world.
I never would have guessed, I told her. Which was true.
That must have been so hard for you.
She shared more about her story as she took my order.
Later, when she handed me my check, she said, "this one's on me."
Lending an empathetic ear landed me a free breakfast. I was full all day.
The most amazing act of kindness I've seen had nothing to do with me, and was between two complete strangers.
I took the bus every day downtown to work. The interesting thing about taking public transit at the same time in the same place every day is that you see the same people, know them, and probably never speak to them.
Just a few stops down from where I got on the bus, a young girl also did. All these years later I couldn't tell you how old she was, maybe 12? She had a backpack with a broken zipper. It was obviously broken; the side not attached to the back straps always flapped open.
There was a whole other cast of characters who took the bus each day, one of which was a middle-aged man. He never talked and overall seemed rather unremarkable. Until one day the girl with the broken backpack got on the bus and sat down. This man stood up, handed her a new empty backpack, said a few words to her, and sat back down.
It was very clear that he didn't want the act of kindness acknowledged. He was not looking for congratulations or recognition. He saw a need, he had the means to help, and just did. I actually think he would be quite embarrassed to know I thought of him all these years later.
They never really spoke or connected after that, we all just continued to ride the bus together until one day we didn't. But it's been probably about 15 years later and I still think about both of them regularly.
I'm not crying, you're crying! (I'm crying.) Love this one, so, so kind. Thanks for sharing.
A lost wedding ring among the dunes. A link to my wife. A link to my-late grandmother. That's what we searched for. That's what we gave up on. That's what we lost. Until, a stranger came to town.
I surf. When I do, my fingers contract, leaving my wedding ring slipping and sliding up and down my finger, precariously tempting fate with each wave.
To lose it would be devastating. Not solely because it's a symbol of love and commitment to my wife. But because it was created from a piece of jewelry that belonged to my late grandmother. One who died of a heart attack at 53. One whom I never met. One who existed exclusively via symbols and heirlooms and stories. A link to the person I had hoped to feel close to my entire life. At sea.
One day, it happened. After coming back from the beach, I noticed: it's gone. This link to my wife. To my grandmother. No more. My wife was upset and empathetic in equal measure, seeing how distraught I was at myself.
One week later, I got a Facebook message: "I think I found your ring."
My Aunt had seen a gentleman on the beach with a medal detector, told him what happened. For no good reason, he assumed responsibility for this quest, listening to the metronomic beep beep beep, searching for the ring of a person he'd never met. And one day, during his search, the beep's tempo went staccato signaling, "trash or treasure HERE."
In this case, it wasn't just treasure, but a link to two women who've shaped my life. One whom I know and love deeply. Another whom exists only in my heart.
Driving cross country in my aged Civic, it was sweet midnight respite to pull into a crowded desert parking lot off I-40 in New Mexico to share a comet stealing across the black expanse.
I stood beside a man who was using a nice set of binoculars while oohing and ahhing together, two pilgrims observing another.
He wordlessly handed me his glasses. My ahhs were enhanced.
I returned the simple gift, exhaled in all my grateful wonder, and returned to the car to gain a few hundred more miles before bedtime. I smiled myself to sleep that night.
I met Mary Jane on NextDoor when I asked for someone to bake a birthday spice cake like mom used to. We've had some interesting adventures thrift shopping.
On September 11, 2001, I was a federal employee taking crisis communications training at one of the two facilities outside Washington D.C. that, unbeknownst to me, had been designated by the President as Continuity of Government sites, where Cabinet members were to be rushed in the event of a terrorist attack. Instead of using their trained staff, however, they kicked us out to fend for ourselves. I was terrified. Five days later, after waiting in a six-hour line at Dulles airport trying to get home to Alaska, I made it to the boarding area by late afternoon, but there was another delay, so I went in search of food. Everything in the terminal was closed except for a small clothing store. “Do you know where there might be any food concessions open?” I asked the young woman at the register.
“Oh gee, I don’t think you’re going to find anything in this terminal,” she said.
There was no way I could get to another terminal with all the security in place. “Okay, thanks.” I turned to leave.
“Wait,” said the young woman. “When was the last time you ate?”
“Um, around six this morning, I think.”
She reached under the register and pulled out a paper bag. “My son made me this lunch today, but I think you need it more than I do.” She handed over a sandwich, and as I accepted it, we both reached for each other and hugged, tears in our eyes. “Thank you,” I whispered. “And thank your son.”
“It’s the least we can do,” she said.
My phone lit up at 9 p.m. on a Sunday. A message from my supervisor. New location for the month. Twenty miles away.
I stared at it for a minute, didn't dare to complain and then tossed the phone face down on the bed.
The next morning hit hard. I peeled myself up like I’d slept in cement. My head buzzed with everything ahead: new branch, new people, new mess to figure out. I tapped open my phone again, checking Uber's estimated fare. The fare made my stomach sink. The trip costs three times what I’d earn that day. And I hadn’t even left the house yet.
The driver chatted on the way, mostly to himself. When he realized where we were going, he glanced at the map again and muttered, “Had I known, I wouldn’t have accepted. This is the middle of nowhere. Good luck finding a ride back.”
He wasn’t wrong. When we pulled in, the world looked like it had forgotten this corner. Dust clouds, forklifts crisscrossing like angry insects, giant trucks groaning through intersections and I felt I would be crushed anytime I thought of crossing the intersection by foot. An industrial zone cut off from everything else.
Inside, I asked the branch staff how they usually got out of here. “We drive with our cars,” one of them shrugged.
I cornered the security guard. “How do I get home?”
He pointed down the road. “Red bus comes every thirty minutes. It’ll take you out of the zone. Then you’ll need another bus. Or two.”
I nodded. I wasn’t paying for another Uber.
The sun had no mercy, it was 100 degrees and nothing but heat bouncing off concrete and unfinished roads. Dust stuck to my face. My shirt clung to my back. Hands felt slippery across my satchel. I stood on the edge of the road, staring down its long, empty stretch. No red bus. Not in 10 minutes. Not in 30.
This was going to be my life for the next month.
A horn snapped me out of it. A black matte car slowed in front of me. The window rolled down. A woman in sunglasses looked out.
“You waiting for someone?”
Cool air spilled out from her car. I just blinked.
“You won’t find a ride here,” she said. “I can drive you out of the zone if you want.”
My brain scrambled. What’s her deal? Why me? Is this a setup? But the alternative was standing in heat and diesel fumes until the sun gave out.
“Okay,” I said, easing into the passenger seat.
She worked at a car parts factory nearby. On the drive, she offered to pick me up every day. Said she passed that road anyway.
Since then, she texts me each evening. "Ready?" "Outside now." "Hop in."
We ride out together, just two strangers sharing a 30 mins ride of air-conditioned quiet. Sometimes we talk about her 3 daughters who won’t whatever she makes, or the way I still don’t know half my coworkers’ names. Nothing deep, nothing heavy. But in a day that wrings me out, that short ride feels like the only part that isn’t working against me.
We still ride together.
Beautiful, Adam. What/where was this job — can you share anything further? Just curious!
Hi, thanks a lot, Noah!
It’s a sales office for life insurance products inside a bank, in Cairo’s industrial zone. My company figured it’s a goldmine. All those factories, all those workers.
To me, it felt more like exile by forklift.
In a moment of sheer delusion, I had convinced myself of a relationship growing in subtext. It wasn’t. I was a mess. It had been a rough year. I was in, what I thought at the time, the crux of it. I wasn’t. It would get worse, but this person offered me so much grace. Despite, in what I imagine was a confusing situation for them, they just kept on offering me space. I mean, I was a bitch you guys. Dirty looks. A refusal to believe id gotten it wrong. My own internal character assault on them. And they just held the line. They didn’t take it on (I hope), and they didn’t make it messier (for several people involved), and I’d imagine it would have been easier to behave otherwise. It taught me so much about the kind of person I wanted to be. How damaging “casual” offenses can really be to people’s whole lives. And how I wanted to move through life offering that same level of grace. I’ll probably never see this person again, and I doubt I’m still on their mind, but I hope they know they were in the right and I, my friends, was sorely in the wrong.
P.S. Another lesson: Just because you think it doesn’t make it true.
Some years ago, I was in the local supermarket buying my week’s worth of groceries for my family of four. My cart was full to the top. After processing through the line, I looked in my purse and realized I left my wallet at home! I was embarrassed and annoyed with myself for that and having to return all the food. A stranger behind me on line, quietly leaned over and said she would pay for the groceries. I thanked her profusely and said I would come right back to pay her, which I did. I never found out her name but I think she was an angel sent that day!
About ten years ago I was working as a vet tech in a town about 20 miles away. My car had broken down and I had to take the train. At the train station, there was no ticket booth, and the automated machine was not working. Once on the train an incredibly surly conductor berated me, and threatened to kick me off the train over a $2.50 fare. This train line is in a very affluent area, with a lot of NYC finance types aboard. Not one person would look at me as I cried, except a wonderful woman who immediately offered to pay my fare. And wouldn’t even accept my thanks. She was Latinx woman, spoke very little English, and helped me a random stranger. I think of this every time I see a news report of another illegal raid by the secret police here. Rolling up the best, hardest working, most generous folks in our country. All while megalomaniacal, narcissistic, felonious billionaires destroy our democracy from the inside out.
I started my trip with three hundred dollars in my pocket and picked up odd jobs that helped me get by. Once, I got paid just to pretend I was a sports enthusiast from some company that was trying to promote American football in Europe.
I was 22, broke, and on a night train to Calais, in Northern France, from some other city I can’t remember. Before cell phones and ATM machines, when broke college students backpacked across Europe, the cash you carried was the money you had, and mine was nearly gone. My plan was to grab an overnight ferry to Dover because I didn’t have enough for a hotel. I figured I’d sleep on the boat, make my way to London and crash with a friend til my flight left for the United States. I only needed to make it three more days.
As the train chugged toward the border, I chatted with a blond haired French guy who wanted to practice his English. I told him my plans, and he said the night ferry to Dover was discontinued.
Discontinued?
In case he was a psycho, I didn’t want this stranger to know I was shocked about the ferry, but inwardly, I panicked. Could I stay in the train station? I doubted it. There’d be no place to hide. A city park? I’d get arrested or assaulted or both. Should I turn myself into the police station? Would they charge me with vagrancy? A public restroom? What about the woods? Could I hike into the countryside and find a spot that would be safe? Would I dare to fall asleep? What would happen if the wrong person found me?
In Greece, where I’d whiled away a week or so among strangers, I’d fallen asleep on the beach, and my back was sunburned. Blisters leaked puss onto my tee shirt and screamed at me every time my backpack sloshed from side to side. The idea of wandering the streets of Callais all night while my backpack tortured my skin made me cringe.
The conversation faded and I stared out the train window, the scary black night whizzing by. When we came to a stop, I picked up my backpack. What I was going to do.
“You can stay at my house,” the French guy said. It was as if he had heard my silent question. His mom would be picking him up at the station, and he lived with her. “She’s really nice," he said. I didn’t know what I was walking into, but I figured my odds with the stranger were slightly better than the dark unknown.
That night, I slept in a beautiful clean bed, by myself. In the morning, I took a shower and smeared ointment into my red, swollen skin. I ate a bowl of hot oatmeal and drank tea with milk. Then the French guy and his mom gave me a ride to the ferry.
I’d used nearly all my money to buy fruit from a vendor in Greece and was living on it, rationing out apples and bananas as I made my way north, but at the station, I handed my fruit to the family. It was all I had. Then I hopped the ferry and got myself home.
That train ride was 40 years ago, and I’ve never forgotten the kindness of those strangers.
I placed a watermelon in the grocery cart of all things. Once it was in there, I thought, how will I ever get this thing out?
Navigating the store with my two-month-old in a front carrier, I was exhausted, hungry, and thirsty. I frantically added items we didn't need and with a half checked list, my son began wailing. There was no consoling him and in my own exhaustion, I cried too. As I began checking, the cashier came around to assist and also helped to place the bags in my cart. Through tears, I tried finding my car key but I couldn't reach the bottom of my bag with my son snug against my chest.
A kind older man wearing a flannel green shirt stood beside me. He told me he had three grandchildren and asked if he could help put my groceries in the car. “Please take care of your son, and let me do this,” he said. By the time I placed my baby in the car seat the man had already unloaded my groceries and was walking to return the cart, I turned the corner to the driver seat to say thank you and he had vanished. A year later, I still wonder if he was an angel.
Although this happened some years ago, I will always remember it. New to Atlanta,I had only been on my job about three or four months when my husband suffered the first of what ended up being two heart attacks and years of heart disease. Married without children and no family in the area, I waited in the 'Family' waiting room of Emory University Hospital, scared and alone. Only to look up to see my new supervisor coming toward me. A physician, she translated the medical info when the doctor spoke of my husband's prognosis. That day changed our status of employee and employer to 'family.' Carol Gee, author
Great prompt, Jesse!
A few years ago, I visited the DMV to update my home address on my driver's license. It was the last task I needed to complete after divorcing my serial-cheating husband of 36 years. (Another story for another day.)
After an indeterminable wait, my number was called. I stepped up to the assigned window, presented my old driver's license, and made my request. The clerk examined it carefully, glancing up at me two or three times with a puzzled look on her face, before asking for my new address.
As she was typing the information into her keyboard, she casually asked, "You aren't the same person anymore, are you?" I shook my head, no.
Not to risk being overheard by a by-the-books supervisor, she leaned forward and whispered, "You know, I can take a new picture for you if you would like, no charge."
The old photo was taken on my 60th birthday. I didn't think it was half-bad for my age, but I never turn down a freebie, so off to the photo booth we went. As I stood waiting, she motioned me to join her behind the counter, an odd request from a DMV employee, but I complied. She slowly turned the computer monitor around and presented me with a side-by-side comparison of the two photos. I gasped. The difference in my physical appearance was so striking, I could scarcely take it in.
The old me was a beaten-down and barely existing version of myself. How had I not noticed, or cared, before? The new me? She was ... dare I say? ... radiant! It was as if 4 decades of betrayal abuse had been erased with one click of the camera.
Smiling, she gently placed her hand on my shoulder. "Just look at you ... what a transformation! I've no idea what you went through, but it's clear how far you've come. You didn't think I was going to let you carry a reminder of that old person around with you anymore, did you?"
She handed me my new license, still warm from the lamination machine. I clasped hold of it and, with tears in my eyes, thanked her for her kindness.
Kay, oh my gosh! This is brilliant. Thank you for sharing.
On my way home from Paraguay, after adopting my six-month-old daughter, Maria, accompanied by my five year-old son, Ryan, we made an unexpected stop at the airport in Rio. It was midnight, and they needed to change planes. Having left Paraguay at 5 am, both kids and I were exhausted. As soon as we sat down, waiting for the next plane, the tears began to fall. I didn't know how I could manage carrying both kids, a diaper bag and carry-ons. When the announcement came to board the plane, all of a sudden a very elderly man appeared and motioned for me to follow him to the boarding area. He picked up Ryan and all of the bags, and off we went. He led us onto the plane and into our seats when he quickly disappeared. I'm sure he was an angel in disguise!
When I was eleven, my sister and I loved to roller skate for endless hours around the block that my grandparents lived on in Southern California. We were relatively poor at the time, so when we would near the corner Stop N Go on our sojourns through the neighborhood, our bellies would ache with envy watching the other children emerge with their cherry Icees, long red licorice ropes, and Mike & Ike gummies. The desire was real. One morning on our way up the street, as we glided along the cracks in the sidewalk, a man on a motorcycle drove by us and threw a handful of tiny yellow envelopes at us. Scared at first, being pelted by strange flying objects, once we opened them up, we realized they all had coins in them. We counted out five dollars and went to the Stop N Go for a sugar spree. It was like our prayers had been answered. Today, I look back at the bizarre experience thinking why would a man be carrying around coins in various envelopes and why would he throw them at us without stopping? Then I recall how much I was praying, which my Catholic grandmother instilled in me that I could do at anytime, while skating, and wonder to this day if I had my first quantum experience with manifestation?
Fifteen years ago, I found myself alone on a 14-hour train ride from Hanoi, in the north of Vietnam, to Hué, a small city located at the country’s north-south midway point. I was young, overeager to prove myself as a citizen of the world, and bent on learning lessons the hard way, as evidenced by the fact that I didn’t bring any food along for the ride, and had barely eaten anything beforehand. Unwilling to test my stomach against the questionably hygienic-looking food cart that rolled by occasionally, I decided to invoke my German Catholic upbringing and endure the hunger.
In the seat to my left was an older woman who could not have seemed less pleased to have me as her travel companion. Like most of the passengers on the train, she looked like a commuter who went in and out of Hanoi for work every week, and had a large collection of bags and suitcases shoved anywhere they would fit, including under my feet. I wasn’t thrilled about cramming my 6’6” frame into an already cramped seating area, but it was what it was. When I tried to greet the woman in what must have been god-awful Vietnamese, I was met with an icy stare and silence. During the first few hours of the trip, whenever I looked out the window to her left, I detected a distinct aura of “don’t.”
All of which was fine until it wasn't. Nine hours into the trip, my resolve began to wane as my hunger grew. I was uncomfortable, sweating profusely, and growing impatient. Offended, even. What was her problem? I didn’t have any luggage shoved underneath her feet. I wasn’t doing anything but trying to explore her country. I was a traveler. Here to expand my mind and learn about different cultures and people. As my thoughts blurred, swaying deliriously between indignation and random musings to pass the time, I felt a tap on my left shoulder. It was her, I thought, bracing myself for a confrontation. What the hell did she want? Preparing my most defiant expression, I turned to face her.
When I met her gaze, her eyes gestured to her extended hand, which she had placed near my lower left arm. In it rested a foot-long sandwich that she had prepared using one of her many mysterious boxes. She motioned it toward me, and though it took me a moment to understand what was happening, I accepted it, my face contorting into what must have been a thoroughly bizarre smile. She smiled back, picking up a sandwich she had prepared for herself, and we ate together, enjoying each other’s strange company in an impossibly comfortable silence.
A couple of hours later, my stop arrived. I gathered my things and told the woman “thank you” in Vietnamese to the best of my non-ability. She smiled and nodded in return. To this day, it remains the best sandwich I've ever eaten, and she remains my favorite memory of that wonderful country.
It was one of those steamy days in New York City when the heat radiates off of every surface. The sun was hiding behind a haze of humidity but clearly visible as I submerged into the subway station. After a 20-minute ride, I resurfaced to see the skies had opened up and, while welcome for its cooling quality, I had failed to anticipate its arrival and had no umbrella. I shrugged and started what I expected to be an uncomfortable walk two avenues east and a few blocks south. Suddenly, the rain stopped falling on my shoulders and I noticed a stretch of black nylon moving above my head. An umbrella. I turned to see a man next to me. “And you are? I asked, attempting to find out who the stranger was. “Your knight in shining armor.” If the scene was from a movie, it likely would have resulted in a montage of scenes from a torrid romance. But, alas, he was just a nice guy.
This is less about random acts of kindness, but more about a flood of wonderful acts by inspiring people. Please read the profiles at The Practical Altruism Project and you'll read about individuals in the fields of law, medicine, the arts, tech, disaster relief, etc., doing their part to make the world a better place. practicalaltruism.com
Thank you. Peter Aronson