What's the nicest thing anyone's ever done for you?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

Damn these allergies!

An ex of mine once who I’d been bitching to about having to work on the Sunday did something really sweet once. I got to the bus stop around 8am, barely noticing the guy already sitting there reading a newspaper. He lowered it and there was my boyfriend, in a suit (he’d worn a suit a few weeks back for a family event and I thought he looked really cute in it), with my favourite combo of chicken sandwich, favourite choccie bar and favourite crisp flavour, all as a packed lunch for me. And a copy of the Sunday Times. It made me smile all day.

I’ve posted before about the Bad Ex ™, but obviously there was good stuff there too, and one fairly minor one still stands out. I had a really important job interview and had finally decided what I was going to wear - the outfit included my knee high black boots which, like all my boots because I’m a slob, were a bit shabby. When I looked across the room to see him polishing them with all his might, total look of concentration on his face, my heart melted a little.

22

On Friday 7th Sept 2001, my mum was rushed into hospital. She would lose her fight with cancer on 10th Sept.

I got into the ambulance with her and the driver flew up the motorway at about 150mph. (I’ve been around planes a fair bit, so I know what 150mph feels like).

The ambulance guy fought with my mum in the emergency room for a couple of hours, finally, his resuscitation efforts were successful. He walked past me as he left the emergency room and I said thanks to him.

Mum was later transferred to a ward, and I spent the night by her side, I didn’t sleep, I just didn’t want her to be alone if she woke up.

She did, she woke up and said, “this is the end of me”
“no mum…”, I tried, but she had already slipped back into unconciousness…

Saturday morning and the doctor shows up, wants to perform a lumber puncture. That’s draining fluid etc from the lungs (it was lung cancer).

All the time, there’s this nurse, Mary McKeown, she’s going beyond the call of duty to help us. Me, my Dad, my sister that is. She keeps me and the family informed as to what’s happening, looks after my mum, spends more time on her than any of the other 20-30 patients in the ward.

Late Saturday afternoon, my mum’s heart rate starts to go south, she has a fever. They move her to a private room, with no heart rate monitor. They knew that I was watching it, watching my mother’s slow decline…

My mum wakes up one final time, wants to get out of bed. I can see despair in her face - like she’d get from the nightmares induced by all the morphine she’d been on in the last few months.

She gives up on getting out of bed and lies back down again, unconsciousness takes her away again. I sit down beside her, hold her hand and this terrible feeling that I’ve never felt before or since came over me. Like I knew it was her time or something, I just totally filled with despair.

I’d been sitting like that, holding her hand, crying for an unknown time, I had really withdrawn into myself, wasn’t registering what was going on in the outside world at all.

The nurse, Mary, came over to me, stooped down so that she was at eye level and asked me if I wanted a cup of tea.
And that just brought me back from that terrible place of despair. I declined the tea, but that was it, that was the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me.

And I never even thanked her for it.

Later, after the funeral was all done, my sister and I went back to the hospital to thank Mary for all she had done for us and the family and my mum.

I know it doesn’t sound like much, but the offer of that cup of tea really touched me, can’t describe how, but I’ll never forget it.

So all nurses in my book automatically qualify as angels!

23

Mine is far more simple.

A friend of mine, the ultimate party person, who closed the bars every night and never got up before noon, took me to surgery at 5 am one day. He must have gotten up at 4 am to pick me up at 5.

I had NO idea how messed up I would feel after the anaesthesia. He spent the rest of the day with me.

24

This time last year, I had just moved to London. It was a Sunday night, and I had started my new job the previous Wednesday - I was anticipating my first full week in the job. I had moved in with a friend I’d known for ten years, and a guy I didn’t know.
That evening my boyfriend broke up with me(by phone, ugh) and I’m not ashamed to say he broke my heart. I couldn’t hide it. Both the friend I knew and the guy I didn’t were amazing that night, as were all my other friends. I telephoned some that night - one said straight away ‘You finish work at 5 tomorrow right? I’ll see you in the pub at half 5. Just get through til 5.’ That evening he and my flatmate sat with me outside, so I could smoke, in the cold, and listened as I got drunk and cried.

I had no appetite, but my flatmate bought me dinner and he didn’t say a word as I ate a few bites of £8.95 sausage and mash then pushed it away.

Another friend sent me a text message every day with a variation of ‘I am thinking of you and I love you’. Yet more friends took it in turns just to be with me, night and day, as I couldn’t stick being on my own.

The heartbreak went on for months, and not one person ever told me it was time to get over it, to pull myself together, and that meant I got over it eventually, calmly, as I needed to.

The people I worked with in the new job, who I’d known for 3 days, knew something was up but were subtle and kind enough not to ask, and when it came time that I could tell people I barely knew, they immediately offered a friendly ear…

I will never forget how fantastic my friends were at that time, and I realised how lucky I am to have people around me who will drop everything to help me, and how lucky I was to have such great new colleagues who in time became friends also. I will be happy to repay this kindness :slight_smile:

25

My favorite niece told me that she wished I would become a father again, because she thought I was a good one, despite my own opinion to the contrary.

She was already my favorite before this, but that added points.

26

Okay, it is a bad idea to read this in a crowded coffee house, especially with a five-year-old next to me. ("Hey, Mister, why are you crying?)

27

I’ve had two surprise birthday parties (I was too clever to actually be surprised).

One was while staying the summer at a couple who are friends of mine’s apartment in another state. Walter knew I liked turtles so he baked me a vegan chocolate cake shaped like a turtle. They invited the neighbors from the apartment building and Laurie’s coworkers who had met me a few times. And they actually brought presents!

The second was when I took a vacation to visit my friend who was spending the summer with his family in Honduras, which coincided with my birthday. They took me to a really cool waterfall for the day, and while we were swimming they all formed a circle around me, held hands and sung happy birthday to me. Then when we got back the house had been decorated in our absence and a cake had been made for me.

28

For my whole life until I moved out of home for college, my dad woke me up. He’d sing, open the curtains, sometimes even pull me out of bed. It never really struck me as unusual that he did that. But now, I’m floored by how much effort it must have took,to do such a kind thing for me every single morning.

29

Ten years ago, one of my sisters gave me $5000 so I could make a down payment on a home so I wouldn’t have to deal with renting, and risking getting evicted on short notice, anymore. She later loaned me another $5000 to pay off a credit card, then $2500 when our AC died. My debt to her was cancelled a couple years early, apparently she couldn’t recall what I still owed.

30

My friend R.R. is one of the best, sweetest, most giving people ever. He recently put a fuel filter on my car, but that’s not the story I’m going to tell.

R.R. has a habit of picking up hard-luck cases and trying to help them. As habits go it’s hardly heroin or hookers. This one time, years ago, he stopped at a gas station and saw a woman sitting in a car, weeping, with some kids in the backseat. He went over to talk to her and found out that she’d left her abusive husband, piled the kids in the car, and was driving from California to Mississippi to live with her father. She made it to Texas and broke down.

R.R. paid to fix her car, gave her some money for gas and food, and sent her on her way. He’d almost forgotten about the whole thing when a few months later a letter arrived for him in the mail. It was from her father, thanking him for helping that woman, and included a check paying him back for every dime.

31

This weekend I was at Target on my own with my 4 month old. Well, as soon as we got in line to check out (only 2 registers open on a Saturday afternoon, of course-sheesh!), the kiddo loses her marbles and starts wailing. Normally, I’d just leave, but we had NO diapers in the house, so I had to get some. So, I pull out a bottle and start feeding her, which calms her down but I have no idea how I’m going to continue feeding her and unload my cart. Just then, the lady behind me in line came up and started unloading my cart for me! She said, “Let me do this while you feed her-I remember what it was like.”

Sometimes the nicest things are the smallest things.

32

My mom passed away at a time when cash was tight and my home phone service had been disconnected for nonpayment. This is back in 2000 - my pre-cell phone days.

I spoke with a customer service rep with NYNEX (form a pay-phone) who restored my phone service immediately since she understood I needed to call family and make arrangements.

I hadn’t cried much before this, but her kindness made me sob.

33

A very wealthy family, part owners of a prominent bank-chain, decided to sell a warehouse/factory building to our church, which had been renting a building for years. There was enough lawn to start an elementary school, the side building could be leased off to another school, and there was plenty of space for the offices. This was done at a price that was something of a gift instead of just a sale.

When the church’s giving got low, it contacted the family’s lawyers, asking how they could best meet their obligations, considering their current ability. Instead of telling the church just to pay the interest, the family told it to pay what it could, and it would be principal, until normal payments could be resumed.

34

My ex-girlfriend let me rent a room in her house for 4 years…while I traveled around the US, Australia, and New Zealand. She could have said NO, and I would’ve had to pay rent on an empty apartment. Instead, I had a place to come home to in between trips–it was truly a gift of a lifetime. Her unselfish friendship is one of the best things that’s ever happened to me.

35

A couple of months ago I posted a rather despairing thread about my husband and I being broke, being foreclosed on, trying to declare bankruptcy, being evicted and having nowhere to go, and whatnot.

A few days later I got a card in the mail from a fellow Doper, with a bit of cash tucked inside. Still makes my day everytime I think of it.

Thanks again, Dung Beetle!

36

This is a great “I am really depressed about my life, I want to read something that makes me only a little bit happier” thread

Such a great idea Purple Haze

37

When I was in college, I took Calculus 1. This was my second try at the class. The first time I failed it miserably. This time I wasn’t doing all that much better. I really tried my best to understand the material, but I was just not getting it.

We were a week away from final exams and I know I was pulling, at best, a D… and that was being optimistic. I didn’t understand a thing about Calculus and here we were getting ready for finals. Needless to say, I was stressing big time about this.

My best friend has always been a math whiz. Our freshman year in college, he decided to take Calc 3 for the “easy A”… That’s how good he was. So with 4 days before finals, I called him up and explained what was going on with me and that class. He came right over and spent about 3 hours with me going over everything: Derivatives, Integrals, everything from the entire semester. He didn’t judge me or talk down to me about how I was doing so poorly in the class, or how I should have studied harder. He just helped me… and I got it all… in 3 hours of tutoring with him I actually understood everything from the course.

When the final exam came, I know I aced it. I ended up with a C for the semester… probably because the professor could see in the final that I was finally getting it.

It was one of the nicest things my friend has ever done for me.

38

When Mr. S and I were first dating back in 1988, I was sharing a tiny apartment with another girl, and he would stop by just about every night on his way to his night-shift job.

One winter night he arrived to find us shivering, because our apartment was on the end of the building, out in the wind, the heat wasn’t working right, and the landlord was being, shall we say, less than helpful. :mad:

After spending some time with us commiserating, Mr. S left for work as usual (or so we thought), but instead he returned about a half-hour later with three brand-new, freshly purchased space heaters, one for each bedroom and one for the common area.

I think it was that moment when I decided I would keep him. :slight_smile: Who would have thought that space heaters would be way more romantic than flowers?

We took them with us when roomie and I both left the apartment, and we used them for years, until the last one burned out a few years ago.

39

My husband bought me a gift from Frederick’s of Hollywood.

When we were dating, I had a migraine so bad I had to go to the ER for a shot of Demerol. He took me there, drove me home, and put me to bed. The light bothered me so much he took bath towels and draped them around the windows, making sure they were all covered.

Next day he went to Frederick’s and bought me a black satin sleep mask so the light wouldn’t bother me anymore.

40

I busted my leg really, really badly about 12 years ago, less than a month after starting a new job. My leg bones were reassembled with a LOT of metal hardware, some of it external, plus I was very weak from all the surgery, etc.

My doctor forbid me to take public transportation, because of the risk that I would fall and screw everything up again. (Plus I was really too weak to stand and wait for the bus, or even walk to the bus stop on crutches, much less climb up the stairs to the El on crutches.)

I couldn’t drive my car to work, even aside from all the painkillers I was on - ever try driving a stick-shift car with one leg? and I had no money to trade in my car for an automatic transmission. I really thought I was going to have no way to get to work, and would lose my job and my medical insurance, and not exactly be in shape to go job-hunting.

One dear, sweet co-worker, who is still a good friend of mine, sent an e-mail around the company explaining my predicament. Another co-worker, whom I’d never even met before, then volunteered to drive me to work every single day. It ended up lasting more than 6 months, until the hardware and subsequent cast came off and I was, if not strong enough to take the train to work, at least strong enough to drive myself.

In case I didn’t say it enough back then, Carol, you totally saved my ass. Thank you, wherever you are.