by M J Ryan
I ran to the pay phone and called my roommate back in California. I was trying to explain what had happened in between hysterical sobs, when a man walked up to me, tapped me on the shoulder, handed me a one hundreddollar bill, and walked away. Thanks to the generous compassion of a total stranger I made the interview on time and was accepted into the veterinary school.
A MISSED BUS
One year when I was away at school I had gone to the Greyhound bus depot to catch a bus home for Christmas break. I looked all over for the right bus, but none of the buses lined up at the terminal had my destination on them. As I was standing there trying to figure out where my bus was, one pulled out and the driver changed the sign as he was leaving—to exactly where I wanted to go. I stood there watching my bus disappear down the highway; I must have been visibly upset because a woman came over, took my arm, and led me to the street. She hailed a taxicab, gave the driver a five-dollar bill, and told him to get me over to the ferry dock quickly, because the bus made a stop there before heading out onto the highway. She wished me a Merry Christmas, and all I could do was smile.
No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.
—Charles Dickens
AH, BAMBINI!
My husband and I were traveling in Italy with two small babies and an au pair. We would trade sightseeing time with the au pair so we could all visit the requisite churches and museums. But on this day we took the babies along, since we only had one day to go to Assisi and all of us urgently wanted to see it. The morning was wonderful—feeling like happy pilgrims, we read each other stories of St. Francis while the babies cooed and gurgled as we drove up the winding streets.
But by the end of a very hot day traipsing up and down hills in the ninety-degree Italian sun, the kids were crying nonstop. One was throwing up; the other had diarrhea. We were all irritable and exhausted, and we had a three-hour trip ahead of us to get back to Florence, where we were staying. Somewhere on the plains of Perugia we stopped at a little trattoria to have dinner.
Embarrassed at our bedraggled state and our smelly, noisy children, we sheepishly tried to sneak into the dining room, hoping we could silence the children long enough to order before they threw us out. The proprietor took one look at us, muttered “You wait-a here,” and went back to the kitchen. We thought perhaps we should leave right then, but before we could decide what to do, he reappeared with his wife and teenage daughter. Crossing the dining room beaming, the two women threw out their arms, cried, “Ah, bambini!” and took the children from our arms, motioning us to sit at a quiet corner table. For the duration of a long and hospitable dinner, they walked the babies back and forth in the back of the dining room, cooing, laughing, and singing them to sleep in gentle, musical Italian. The proprietor even insisted we stay and have an extra glass of wine after the babies were asleep! Any parent who has reached the end of his or her rope with an infant will agree that God had indeed sent us angels that day.
If you want happiness for an hour—take a nap.
If you want happiness for a day—go fishing.
If you want happiness for a month—get married.
If you want happiness for a year—inherit a fortune.
If you want happiness for a lifetime—help someone else.
—Chinese proverb
TWO FLAT TIRES
I used to make an eighty-mile drive to visit my parents, and there's a forty-mile stretch of the road that's in the middle of nowhere. One day as I was driving alone along this barren patch, I saw a family on the side of the road with a flat tire. Normally I do not stop in such situations, but for some reason I felt the need to do so that day. The family was very relieved when I volunteered to drive them to a gas station about ten miles down the road to get help. I left them at the station because the attendant said he would take them back to their car and drove on my way. About twelve miles later, I had a blowout. Since I couldn't change the tire myself, I was stranded and not sure what to do. But in only about ten minutes a car came along and pulled over to offer help. It was the same family I had stopped for earlier that day!
We realize that what we are accomplishing is a drop in the ocean.
But if this drop were not in the ocean, it would be missed.
—Mother Teresa
I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it.
—Alice Walker
THE CARPET SELLERS OF KATHMANDU
After a trek to Mount Everest, I found myself in a rug shop in Kathmandu considering buying a carpet.
I had entered to big smiles and choruses of “Welcome, my sister!” from the proprietors, a pair of brothers from Kashmir named Qayoom and Yousef. After introductions and handshaking all around, I was offered a seat and something to drink. At first I declined, but Qayoom insisted, so I asked for black tea. He said something in a language I couldn't recognize to an old man with half-closed eyes who stepped outside to fetch our drinks.
Qayoom lived with Yousef's family in four rented rooms in a quiet section of town. The old man lived with them. They had found him drunk and living on the streets, and, as good Muslims, they felt it was their duty to help. So they offered him a job on the condition that he quit or at least cut back. The old man took a new name, Surkedai, which translates to “Happy Man.” He used to be “one hundred percent bad” when it came to alcohol, said Yousef. Now he is “eighty percent good and only twenty percent bad.” In return Surkedai fetches drinks for customers, dusts the shelves of small knickknacks in the front room of the shop, walks the twenty minutes back to the house to bring lunch each day, and rerolls the carpets that customers aren't interested in.
This old man, whose wife and family abandoned him to the gutter because of his drinking problem, now has a place to sleep, a small wage, and people who care about him.
UN-LOST
I was wandering aimlessly through the aisles of the Sears automotive department in a big, impersonal East Coast city. I felt terribly alone, far from home, and so totally preoccupied with my own misery and loneliness that I don't think I really saw anything on the shelves. After awhile I became aware of a small child about three or four years old, walking and crying at my side. I don't know how long she had been keeping me company, but I sensed that somehow she had gravitated toward me as someone who would help her. I knelt beside her and asked if she was lost; with tears streaming from her eyes, she just nodded. I held out my hand and told her not to worry, that we would find her parents. She put her hand in mine and I led her up to the counter, where two wonderful salesladies immediately enveloped her and promised to find her parents.
As I was leaving the store I heard the announcement over the paging system and had no doubt that she would soon be reunited with her parents. I also realized that all my own doom and gloom had disappeared. I thought to myself that just as that little girl had renewed my spirit, perhaps the small acts of strangers willing to help would allow this child to grow up with a little less fear and a more compassionate outlook on the world.
The ocean, king of mountains, and the mighty continents
Are not heavy burdens to bear when compared
To the burden of not repaying the world's kindness.
—Buddha
It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.
—Ursula K. Le Guin
IN A STRANGE TOWN
On my first trip to the States, I arrived in New York as a student and went down to the bus station to buy a ticket. I had my money in one hand and my handbag in the other—it didn't have anything valuable but my address book in it. Going up to the counter to pay, I put my bag down for a second and when I looked again, it was gone. I couldn't believe it. I started to panic because I realized that without my address book I didn't know how to get in contact with my brother, who I was going to stay with.
The friend who was with me suggested we go to the police. With what I knew about New York's
reputation I told her that would be a waste of time. But we went anyway and met two policemen who seemed to be straight out of a television show. They couldn't have been nicer. They said, “Such a terrible thing to happen to you on your first trip to America.” They took down the details and then started asking me questions: Where was I going? Did I know how to get in touch with my brother? Of course I didn't, because my address book was gone. Then one policeman said, “Do you know anybody who knows him?” And I remembered I knew his in-laws. So they allowed me to make a long-distance phone call to the in-laws to get my brother's address and phone number. And when I got off the phone they said I should go ahead and call my brother right then and there so I wouldn't be anxious. Then they walked us back to the bus stop where we could find our way back to our hotel.
THE TAXI DRIVER
New York City is a great place to find kindness because it is always such a surprise. I was going to a trade show and my plane was delayed, so by the time I got to my hotel everyone I was supposed to meet had already left for the show. The concierge told me that if I walked around the block I could catch a shuttle. So I walked to the bus stop, but the last shuttle had already gone. Then a young man standing on the sidewalk said, “The convention center isn't very far, it's only four blocks.” So I started walking. But it wasn't only four blocks, and I walked and walked.
It started getting dark, I was already an hour late for my meeting, and I found myself in the warehouse district—definitely not the kind of place you want to be in when you're all by yourself in New York. Eventually I saw a little light in the distance and started walking toward it. As I walked, a taxi drove past, then backed up and asked me where I was going. I told him and he said, “Get in. I'll take you there.” By then I was really relieved, particularly when it turned out to be quite far to the convention center. To make the moment even sweeter, when the driver dropped me off—safely back among my friends—he wouldn't take any money from me.
IN NEED OF A GUIDE
I had been traveling in Asia for three months and was in Hong Kong to meet up with my boyfriend who was flying in for a week. Somehow his pending arrival had brought up all the homesickness that had stayed buried during the day-to-day difficulties and joys of traveling. I had boarded a bus that I thought was going to the airport, but the bus flew past the airport without stopping and I burst into tears. I was eager to meet my boyfriend's flight but instead I was on a bus to God knows where. I kept calling out “airport, airport,” but the bus driver spoke no English.
A Chinese woman who spoke some English told me to get off at the next stop, which was in the middle of an expressway. The woman exited and headed off in the opposite direction, after indicating that I was to follow a second woman who was gesturing wildly and speaking Chinese. Then she too turned off in a different direction after aiming me down still another street. After a few steps I noticed an old man who had been there all along. Quietly and patiently, looking back every so often to make sure I didn't get lost, he guided me through the crowded and confusing streets of Kowloon to the airport. To this day I think gratefully of my shy and silent guide and of course his more vocal friends.
TAKE MY SEAT
I was standing in line getting ready to board a plane when this guy comes rushing up to the ticket counter. He had obviously sprinted through the terminal and was furious when the woman at the counter told him his reservation had been cleared and his seat given away. She offered to get him a confirmed seat on the next flight, which unfortunately was not leaving for nearly five hours, but he would have none of it. He started screaming about how important it was that he get to Chicago by seven, how irresponsible the airline was when, after all, he had a confirmed ticket, how he wanted to see the supervisor, and on and on and on.
Finally he stopped his tirade and, in a very quiet voice, said, “I'm really sorry. I'm just completely stressed out and I can't believe I am going to miss this meeting.” Right then an old man who was standing in front of me in the boarding line watching this whole thing stepped up to the counter and said, “Here, take my seat. I'm retired and I'm in no real hurry to get anywhere.” The guy was so happy and so humbled at the same time that it looked like he was going to cry. Then he took the ticket and got on the plane.