In Such Poor Health I Couldn’t Walk As a Stranger Practically Supported Me to the Toilets.
Back when I was nineteenth year, my morning travel was on an express bus. It was perpetually full and was consistently without any seats by the time I got on.
On one specific day, I began feeling terribly ill while the vehicle lurched around the bends. I kept telling myself to endure just a little longer until the bus got to my stop, at which point I could sprint quickly to the closest public toilet to vomit.
We were coming down the road leading to my stop and it dawned on me I wasn’t going to make it. All of a sudden, it seemed a veil came over me. Everything just went white and really quiet; like someone had turned off the audio. My mind raced, “I will lose consciousness”.
Thankfully, I was positioned close to the driver inside the vehicle, so I managed a couple of steps to ask the driver and asked the driver to pull over, telling him I needed to vomit. He opened the doors and I weakly exited onto the sidewalk.
I was resolved to not get sick in view of multiple lanes of cars, so I gathered myself and started trying to make my way to the park opposite the street, where I thought it would allow me to discreetly hide behind a bush to throw up. Yet I apparently blacked out. I sensed my limbs, but walking was impossible and my vision was blurry, so I started inching my way to the park.
“Everything alright, love?”
In that instant, I got scooped up. I sensed someone holding me and a man’s voice asked, “You right, love?” I explained to this kind passerby that I required to get to a bathroom. Thus, he practically helped me walk down into an adjacent building and placed me in the ladies’ toilets. He inquired if I wanted him to stay with me but I declined.
After a short while, I had recovered to the point of sitting on the restroom floor and from the other side of the stall I heard his voice asking, “Are you feeling better, dear? Can I get you something?” I wasn’t able to rise just then but did manage to express my gratitude and after a few more minutes regained the function of my limbs. I returned home and spent several days healing from what was later diagnosed as a nasty tummy bug.
I never saw his features – only his legs and a large container for tools he had with him – but he helped me, at a moment I was completely helpless.
Often this world has a way of making you self-protective, pushy, and rivalrous. His act was the type of kindness that undoes that emotional callousness. He was proof that our default setting is towards kindness, something I love about humanity.
