We can’t always help ourselves. Sometimes what we need is simply beyond our own capacities to create. This reality can leave us feeling helpless and defeated, or it can fill us with gratitude that we are connected in this web of life.
How have you found help or hope from someone who you did not know well?
A recent fall in the grocery store parking lot left me collapsed but not broken; however, a stranger in a white truck pulled in off of the outside road and helped me up and into my car so I could drive home and then he drove away from the parking lot, on his way to another errand. What a surprise; what a stronger belief in the kindness and support of strangers when needed,
My husband and I were lost in an unfamiliar city trying to get to a play, which we were going to be severely late for. I was extremely angry at myself for miscalculating how long it would take us to get there by public transit, for wanting to go to this show at all because my husband wasn’t going to like it, for spending the money on these expensive tickets, and for being an worthless idiot in general. I was in a spiral of rage and shame and I hated myself so much I wanted to explode.
After a stealthy visit to the Starbucks restroom (I’d been holding for over an hour), my husband asked a nice middle-aged couple for directions. My husband and I are not very good at remembering or following directions, so nearly an hour later, we were still wandering lost–and even further from the theater than we had been. And my rage/shame spiral was continuing to build. Then the couple passed by us in their car. They hollered for us to get in, and they drove us to the theater. We totally missed the show, but fortunately I was able to attend the later show.
P.S. on the off chance that this couple were UUs and might see this: this was in Cambridge, MA, this October. You had your grandchild’s car seat in the back of your Subaru.
Thank you so very much, you saved our night.