Um, I was a kind stranger (that count?)
We were going into a Target when I saw a little girl (3 or so) just standing on the curb by herself. She was about to step off and wander into the parking lot. Nobody else was paying any attention so I stepped in front of her and smiled. I asked her where her mommy was and she followed me over by the store. A minute or so later her mother comes running out with the most scared expression I have ever seen. Then she broke into the most beautiful smile and thanked me. I told her that my son wanders off too.
The rest of the day I had the most wonderful feeling of peace. I think that helping others is a gift.
:ish wowed:
This last December, I had a minor car accident (ran the car into the curb and flattened the tire, among other things) and had to pull over on a side street to assess the damage. It was fairly chilly out (for Texas anyway) and I didn’t have a coat with me. Plus…I am so girlie I can’t even change a tire. I close and lock my doors and turn my fourways on, hoping somebody will come by and let me use a cellphone to call my husband at work and he’ll come get me. After about 15-20 min a couple drives by and the lady gets out and asks if I need to use their cell. I roll down the window and stick my hand out, thanking them. I call CG at work and as I’m talking to him I notice the man getting out the car, coughing his lungs out. I finish my very short convo with CG and hand the phone back to the nice woman. Her husband, who explains that he has the flu and just returned from the dr’s office, asks if I’d like to have my tire changed. I tell my husband is on his way and he’ll change it when he gets there. But the guy is insistent so what else can I do but get out and pop the trunk so he can get at my spare? After a few moments, he’s got the tire changed and they are getting ready to leave. The woman asks me if I’m ok and when CG will be getting there and I tell her everything will be fine. They drive off and I just hope to Goddess that the guy didn’t die because he helped me with my spare.
Then there was the time, shortly before we moved into the house, that my Buick died about a half mile from our apt. CG and I tried pushing it but it was a hot summer night and both of us were soon throwing-up sick from exertion, heat exhaustion and dehyrdration. A really NICE lady pulls up with her football player teenage son in a van and asks if we’re ok, since both of us are sitting on the side of the road behind the car puking our guts out into a storm drain. I guess we didn’t have to answer because she put us in HER car while her son steered ours and she pushed it from behind with her van to the entrance of the parking lot of our apt complex. By that time we were recovered enough we could push it by hand into the parking lot.She told us she’d be back in a few moments and left. CG and I both wondered what was up and I sent him into the apt because he was looking worse than I was. About 10-15 min later, the woman comes back and hands me an envelope with close to $300 dollars in it for car repairs and I am awestruck as I count it out. She said God wouldn’t have let her do any less than help us out and this was just God’s plan.
CG was just as astounded as I was and of course we used most of it on car repairs. We took $20 and went out to dinner one night but the rest went for repairs on the Buick.
IDBB
It was touch and go there for a while, Audrey L.
As per the vet, I feed him lean ground beef and rice and beef stock until he regained his strength and only took him out wrapped in a blanket. I think we survived on Ramen and water and I distinctly remember coveting the dog’s ” burgers”.
However, once he fully recovered, I realized that I was in no position to really care for him. Very unstable living situation, no money, and no job. I was so attached to the little guy but I managed to find him a good home with a young couple that were gainfully employed and had the resources to care for him.
They both adored him and I knew that it was the best thing I could do for him.
On a side note Cranky, years ago, I had a client that was a Hungarian eye surgeon and he shared with me the story of his families escape from Hungary after the Soviet troops occupation in 1956. While fleeing across the border (apparently the Russians hadn’t completely secured all check points), he dropped the diaper bag and went back to pick it up!
When I asked him why he replied. “I would’ve rather been shoot than face Mrs. A without it. We had two small children in diapers and I wasn’t prepared to tell her I’d lost the bag.”
My brother and I were traveling through northern California in the early summer of ‘96 and we pulled off the road in the tiny town of Blue Lake. We were hoping to find a bar televising the NBA championships (during the heyday of the Bulls … Ah, those were the days!). The plan was to watch the game, have just a beer or two and then push on to Redding CA, where we were to meet up with some friends. Well, a married couple in the bar struck up a conversation with us and a couple of beers turned into quite a few more and the next thing you know it was 1am. The couple asked what we planning on doing and I told them we’d head up the road a bit and probably camp in the Trinity National Forest. They insisted that it would be easier to stay with them and offered us the guest bedroom at their house. We tried to decline (partially because we didn’t want to inconvenience them and partly because we thought it a bit strange that these folks would invite 2 scruffy looking 20-something year olds back to their house after only knowing us for less than 4 hours), but they wouldn’t hear of it. So off to their house we go and they set us up in the bedroom. The next morning the woman pops her head in the door at 5:30 am and says to keep sleeping in and that she left us a note on the counter. When we finally get up around 8, we find the house is empty, there is a large stack of waffles on the kitchen counter and the note tells us to help ourselves to the waffles and any other food in the fridge. The note goes on to say that the couple worked for the county health department and they had to go into Eureka to work during the annual “Oyster Festival” and would we please make sure to close the door as we leave. I was completely amazed that these folks would trust a couple of people they didn’t know to have the complete run of their house.
In the years since I have always remembered their kindness and have tried to give to others some of the good karma that was donated to me that night. However, I doubt I could do what they did and take in a complete stranger and leave them unsupervised in my house. I’d be too paranoid that they’d kill me, or steal from me, or some other calamity would result. It’s a shame, really, that those practicalities prevent us from being kinder to each other than we could….
In March of 1977 I was returning home from Army service in Korea. We flew into Travis AFB in California, and I, along with several others, had to make our way to the civilian airport(why can’t I remember the name?), for connections elsewhere. Except that it turns out the flight I was scheduled for was only on weekends, so I had to change tickets, which took up all my extra cash. The others stood me for what should have been my share of the cab ride between airports.
A year or so later I was a passenger on a motorcycle when a car hit us and flipped us end over end. I didn’t have major injuries, suprisingly enough, but I was scraped up and bleeding as I and the motorcycle driver sat on the curb. he was a little more banged up than I. Many spectators of course, just staring. But one lady sat down beside me and spoke calmly and soothingly about how everything was going to be okay. she held my hand too. Sounds sort of wierd but it was great actually. The ambulance arrived and she stepped back. I never got her name, didn’t know her from Adam, but I kind of got the impression of “My work here is done” from her.
Some years ago now I was a keen cyclist. Part of my route included a steep hill which was used as a cattle track. Right at the top of the hill I swerved to avoid a fox which dashed out and came off, ending up sliding down the hill trapped under my bike.
I got up slightly dazed, having shredded my left leg, arm and left side of my face, (the track had abraided right through my jeans’ leg and coat), my bike was unusable and I couldn’t really walk home. Very few people do that route, and I wasn’t thinking straight enough to get to a phone.
I’m not sure how long I’d been standing there when a chap on a bike rode up. He asked what happened and gave me his handkerchief to wipe away some of the blood. When I told him, he reassured me, asked where I lived, and then cycled a couple of miles to tell my parents what had happened and where I was.
He came back to the house a few days later to check how I was. Apparently he’d seen the fox running off and when he rode across to have a closer look, saw me off my bike at the bottom of the hill and went up to see if he could help. He said he was sorry he couldn’t do more, but he was worried that if someone else came passed saw a girl covered in blood talking to a guy they’d jump to the wrong conclusion. Personally I think he did more than anyone could expect.
Considering the doctor said that if it hadn’t been treated so quickly (TCP bath) I’d have been under anathestic while they scrubbed the dirt out, I am very, very, grateful to him.
I had my first job interview in 1996. On the morning of the interview, I was staying at the then-boyfriend’s place, which was really old. The last roommate out didn’t know I was there, and locked the deadbolt, which you needed a key to unlock from either side. It was pouring rain out, and I had to climb out a window to get out of the house.
The subway had problems that day, and was running late. I needed nylons, and every store I could find didn’t have them in my size or the right color (not being picky, but it had to be soemthing that would go with my suit).
Eventually, I got to a CVS. I was totally drenched, and discouraged. On the way in, a security guard looked at me and said I needed an umbrella. My thoughts exactly, and I went to find one, and my nylons. After I counted my money, I found I was a dollar short to get both items, and put the umbrella down. The security guard tracked me down in another aisle, and asked me why I put the umbrella down. I said I was a dollar short, and he gave it to me.
It was only a dollar, but it changed my whole day. After being cold, wet, miserable, and scared about the interview, this guy made me feel like life was good.
He was never working at that CVS again when I went in to find him 
So, thank you, CVS-security guard, wherever you are!
Did you get the job?
Haj
Mr. S did something like this years before I met him. I forget how, but he was on the scene of a car accident with several people seriously injured. There was one girl who, although she was bleeding, was not seriously hurt, but she was freaking out a bit and there were not enough emergency people to go around. One of them asked Mr S. to look after her unti they could get to her. He held her, talked to her, kept her calm, and kept pressure on the bleeding, for quite a while IIRC. One of many reasons why I think I’ll keep him. 
I had previously told the story of the Not-So-Merry-Christmas when my wife got lost and tipped her scooter over on a cold December day. After she got home from the hospital, she told me more details of what had happened that night.
She had driven her scooter off the curb and was lying there, half in the street, when a car pulled up. The driver came over to her, helped her into the car to warm up, and called the police on her cell phone. Once the police arrived and she was sure that my wife would be all right, she drove off.
A couple Christmases ago I was in the Post Office bear closing time. I was just sending a small priority mail package, maybe $3.50 back then. But for whatever reason I had forgotten my wallet. Of course I did not realize this until the lady had already rung me up. I was farked. The rabbi behind me came up and paid for me. I thanked him many times, asked for a business card or whatever, and mailed him back $5 and a warm thank-you note.
IDBB, a strange lady gave you three hundred bucks to fix your car? eyes bulge out of head Can you send her my way? 
Wow. Can I say that again? W-O-W.
This is a wonderful thread!
A couple of years ago, before I got my computer at home, I did all of my net surfing from an internet café in central London. One day as I got up to leave, I realised my handbag (purse) was missing from where it had been at my feet. Some £%$()%* had snatched it. I freaked out. It had everything in it - money, credit cards, cheque book, Underground season ticket, office security pass, name and address and my house keys. I had no way of getting back home (10 miles away) and no money.
The manager of the internet café was a knight in shining armour. He took me into his office and immediately phoned the credit card companies - he had the phone numbers right there in his office for all the major credit card companies and the banks, because apparently this happens all the time - and we got my cards cancelled and all my cheques stopped within 15 minutes. Then he loaned me £10 so I could go straight home and make sure no-one had used my keys to get in (fortunately my neighbour had a spare set so I could get in).
Needless to say I went straight back the next day and repaid him.
My friend and I were in our late teens and had drived to a larger town about an hour away to go dancing. The place closed around midnight - and on the way back, her car broke down.
It was 1 am, we were on a lightly-travelled expressway, and this was before cell-phones.
A guy on his way to his night shift radio job picked us up & took us to the station so we could call for a ride. If you’re out there - thanks.
Growing up I had a dog named Patches, a little white fluffy poodle mix that I loved. He was a great dog but was spooked by thunderstorms, usually hiding under a chair whenever a storm was near.
That day there was a storm coming, but he usually accompanied my mom out to get the mail and he ventured out that day, too. My mom was a little suprised that he wanted to come out, but he did. The thunder spooked him and he took off. My mom called but he didn’t come back, and she walked around the house, not thinking he had gone far or was hiding from the storm somewhere, as he had never gone far. After a while she gave up because of the rain and went inside to wait for him, after opening the gate so he could get back in the yard.
A while later there was a knock on the door, and a young woman stood dripping wet, holding Patches in her arms. She had been driving on a busy road a few blocks from our house and saw him run out into the street, and saw another car hit him, and drive off. She pulled over and saw that he had been killed, but read his tags and scooped him up and brought him to my mom. She said she had a dog like him once and couldn’t leave him there. My mom was so touched that this girl would go out in the rain to bring someone’s dead dog home - and I was too when she told me what had happened. I was so glad that girl was there, he could have been out there for who knows how long, if we ever found him. My mom said his body still looked perfect and he was able to have a proper burial in the back yard. Still brings a tear when I think about it.
Great thread!
When I was about 13 or 14 I was riding my bike back from a friends house. I was passing a construction site when the little metal strip things that are used to bundle larger things got wrapped around my back wheel.
I sat on the ground for a good 45 minutes trying patiently to unwrap the metal, but it was jammed pretty good. It was too far for me to walk home hefting this thing back was not even considers, nor was leaving it. I was effectively getting no where with it.
And it was hot. July. Full Summer.
Out of nowhere a big construction guy comes over and offers to help. He sees the problem, takes out a pair of tin snips and easily cuts away the metal. In a matter of seconds, I was free.
I was always grateful to him for that.
6 years ago, I was getting ready to leave town for Thanksgiving. I was driving to my mom’s house which is 200 some odd miles away. I stopped to get gas, and placed my wallet on the spoiler of my car, and proceeded to fill up and then left town. Getting out of the car at my mothers house, I made the usual grab for the wallet which was normally laying on the pasenger seat, when I realized it wasn’t there, immediately realizing that I had left it on the spoiler and drove away. The sinking feeling in my stomach pretty much ruined my turkey day, thinking about canceling my credit cards and my phone cards, putting stop payments on the blank checks, and replacing my drivers license. Friday morning, my grandmother called. A gentleman had just dropped my wallet off at her house, (address on my checks at the time,) as he had picked it up in the middle of the highway a couple miles outside of town. Oh the relief!! I looked up his name and address and sent him and his wife a box of Parrot chocolates and a thank you note, though I never did meet them face to face. I had a couple of extra angels to be thankful for that year.
When I was leaving Belize, I had absolutely no cash, and almost started crying when the lady at the airport in Belize City (I had flown over from Ambergris Cay) told me there was a $20 US fee to leave the country. Really, I guess I should have known this, as I have paid it at other countires airports that I was trying to leave, but it slipped my mind, and I only had enough cash for a soda and a pack of gum. A nice man behind me paid mine for me, thereby allowing me to no be stuck in the Belize City Airport until everyone else showed up the next day. (I had to leave early so I could stop at home and pick up my cat before going back to school). He was kind. It surprises me when strangers are kind.
oooh, another one:
My family was driving back from Colorado one blizzardy night, I think we were near Salina Kansas, and a chunk of ice came off the front passenger’s side (it was frozen to the bumper) and hit one of the back wheels, causing us to almost flip over. The sudden change of momentum flung my little brother an I out the back doors of the van, which I apparently opened with my shoulder, thereby breaking my collar bone. When I regained consciousness, I was in snow up to my ears and a people in a car were yelling at us to come to them. The weird part was, in the back of the van, the seat folded down, and I had been staring out the back for hours now, and hadn’t seen headlights in a while. Kansas is flat. . . you get the picture. This nice older couple took half of us to the hospital, another truck happened by and took the other 3. Luckily, I was the worst hurt, everyone else just got bumps and bruises, and only two of us were wearing our seatbelts. Again, luckly those were the people that ended up in the air when we fipped on our side. The weirdest part of that first kind couple that stopped was: They were sure to give us their address because they wanted to make sure we were all right in the end. WHen my dad wrote them a thank you letter with a picture, it was returned to us. The envelope said the addresss didn’t exist. . . The conclusion my family came to was that they were guardian angels.
It was a bad time. 20 years ago now. Mr. as_u_wish had a business, and it was going bankrupt. He’d put his heart and soul into it and could not accept what was happening. So he wrote checks–big checks, thousands of dollars worth of checks–that he couldn’t cover. I found out when the police arrived to serve warrants. He had a breakdown and lost touch with reality. At times he thought he was back in highschool living with his parents. Other times he’d head to work and come home confused because it was locked up.
We had two little children, no money, legal problems galore, the IRS assessing fines daily. The words I’m writing feel so cold, but tears are running down my cheeks remembering the emotions. The deep despair, the aloneness, the shame, the fear. Most terrifying were my husband’s shifts in and out of reality and the soul-wrenching feeling that even God had abandoned us.
I held a garage sale, selling virtually everything to get enough money to buy a junker so I could get to work. We had $400. In the paper we found a car advertised for $400 (!) and Mr. as_u_wish went to look at the car. He came home happy and bubbly about three hours later with this great car that he’d bought for $600. SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS. He’d written a check for $600. SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS. We did not have $600, there was nowhere to get it, and he was blissfully unaware. I went cold all over. Icey. I couldn’t say anything to him, he was so happy. The police had made it clear that any more bad checks meant arrest. The doctors had told me he needed suppor and calm and my trust to get well. And he was humming and getting the kids ready for a ride in the new wheels.
Totally numb I went upstairs and lost it. I dropped to my knees and poured out my anger to God. We are not talking a nice prayer here. We are talking rage, fury. How could you do this to me? I can’t take any more. Not a gracious asking prayer or a demanding prayer. An angry passionate, I give up, you deal with it because I quit prayer. We are not how great thou art, thee’s and thou’s, we are talking expletive-deleted, fist pounding, anguish. Not, I love my husband please help him prayer, but you made that dishonest, check kiting, jerk, take him the hell back before I kill him prayer. There was not an internal or external part of me that was not shaking with the depth of hopelessness.
I came downstairs. Mr. as_u_wish and the kids had gone for a ride. And the phone rang. I was sure it was the police, or a lawyer or a debt collection agency. Well, I was in the right f*cking mood to deal with THEM, bring 'em on.
It was a sweet, little old lady voice, asking could she talk to the nice man who’d just bought the car for $600. I was sure the check had already bounced, and I started to explain and…
And she stopped me and said, please, I didn’t understand. Her husband had two cars for sale, one for $400 and one for $600. And she’d gotten confused, she didn’t understand cars really, you see, they all look alike, and she’d charged that nice young man $600 but he’d taken the $400 car and would he please come out and write her a check for $400 because she just couldn’t take the extra $200 for that old car and she felt so bad and…
And so the healing began. Spritual, emotional, financial. It wasn’t the money that mattered so much as the reassurance, the touch of another human being who could have done nothing, but instead gave a gift of love and kindness and restoration.
Junker car…$400
Restoring a woman’s hope…priceless
Yeah, but it turned out to be the worst job of my life. It was the only interview I was able to even get, though, so I guess it worked out, and it taught me that I didn’t want to be a chemist.