Recently I was the recipient of a Random Act of Kindness. A business trip to Perth was a disaster from start to end. My train was cancelled, so I missed my flight and had to wait 6 hours for another, which meant I missed a special occassion by arriving late. I had a few things stolen at one of my demonstrations, and a couple of very near misses in the hire car. When I got off the red-eye flight and went to buy my train ticket home, I realised that my wallet was missing.
That was the last straw ... I had a little meltdown on the floor in front of the ticket machine, pulling everything out of my luggage trying to find my wallet. No joy. Where would I find $21 to get home?
And this is when I received my RAK. A man who had been travelling on the same flight saw my distress and insisted on giving me my train fare home. He wouldn't give me his name or contact details so that I could pay him back. It was the kindest thing anyone has ever done for me and I will never forget it.
I would like to hear about any Random Acts of Kindness that you have given others, or received. Leave a comment here on the blog with your story, and I will choose one at the end of the month to receive a custom fairy portrait. You can have the portrait done for you, or gift it to someone else. Winner will be announced on 1st November.
4 comments:
yup... hard to find someone so kind nowadays...
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Maybe it just comes from living in Texas (Friendly State, after all), but I've had so many strangers be kind to me. Your travel story reminds me of one of my own-- when I was 15, living in Austin, I was trying a new bus route to get home from work. The buses were and are a risky gamble for me; I have an abysmal sense of direction and limited mobility,so every new route represented hours of calculations to make sure it brought me to my destination within my own very limited walking distance.
This time I got it wrong. Very, very wrong. Halfway across town wrong. As the buses stopped running. And in a time before cel phones, I had no way of contacting my (working) mother to even let her know I'd be late, much less get a ride. It was dark, it was cold, the bus was turning off its sign. I wasn't crying, because that's not what mature reasonable adultish people do, and I wanted to be those things.
But man, I wanted to be crying.
And that was when the bus driver noticed me. He asked me, basically, why I was still sitting there. When I told him, he asked if I knew my address. And when I told him I did...
He drove me home. All the way. About thirty minutes just to my place. Gave me a big ol' sandwich on the way, too. Talked to me the whole time about his kids, and how proud he was of them when they tried to be independent, even if it didn't work out. When he dropped me off, I was in a great mood, fed, and home safe. He didn't have to do any of it; could have easily kicked me out in a strange neighborhood with not even pay-phone fare. Instead he went out of his way to save another parent some worry, and help out a stupid kid he'd never met. One of my all-time heroes, and he never even told me his name.
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How horrible for you and how lucky that the man was there...
My random act of kindness was to a little old lady who was in front of me in the shopping centre. She only had a few items I had my usual trolley full. I was busy stacking the groceries while her tally was being rung up when i realised that the cashier was telling her that she needed 3 more dollars or she would have to put some things back. She wasnt polite or sympathetic to this poor lady who was clearly embarassed. I told the lady that i would cover it the old lady was very gracious and i said that i would hope someone would do the same for my nan if she was ever caught short and that i was sure she had helped many people in her lifetime. The saddest thing about the story is that the cashier just looked at me as if i was crazy, it obviously would never occur to her to do that for someone.
I've been thinking about this for some time, and can't really go past my Nanna and what she had left me that meant so much... Nanna was always known in our family for her wonderful home made Christmas pudding. She made it without fail for every Christmas lunch, Mothers Day and Fathers Day lunches when all our family would get together at Nanna and Pars for the traditional baked dinner on these occasions... When I started scrapbooking I realised the importance of hand written letters, cards, etc and so with this in mind I asked Nanna if she could jot down her Christmas Pudding recipe for me so I could keep it and have a go at making it. She laughed and told me to just come in to her place and she would show me how to make it, which was a great idea, but I wanted the recipe to keep so I had a copy of it in her own handwriting for myself and my boys. I pestered her on and off for months lol, and then hadn't mentioned it for a while as I figured she would probably throttle me if I kept nagging her lol! Anyway, I was pretty crook one particular day, and Nanna had made a casserole and gone and bought me a few groceries at the shops for us to help out. She came up to see me, and when she popped the groceries and casserole on the kitchen bench, she also put down a piece of paper and said to me, "oh and by the way, theres my recipe that you wanted if you can understand it!" quite blaaze,and she laughed. I was thrilled to the back teeth and she will probably never know how much it truly meant that this RAK she had given to me had been something so priceless at the time. A week and a half later, Nanna was taken to hospital very crook after picking up a terrible illness and 4 days later she passed away... My Nanna was my everything, and her RAK is one that I still have and will never ever forget. I miss her dearly ...
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