Love is a Powerful Drug
My dad recently lost his job, and with it his health insurance. He had a heart attack last year and has to take an expensive medication as a result.
A one-month supply is around $250 without the insurance to help. He went to his doctor’s office yesterday to find a coupon to at least shave off some of the cost.
A nurse went in the back and ended up coming back with a two-month supply of free samples for him.
Saved my parents from paying $500 out of pocket for a drug he absolutely needed.
PremiereLife
A Sweet, Final Reunion
My mom was dying, she lived in Australia and I live in Georgia. My husband had been laid off from work and I couldn’t afford to fly to Australia on a last-minute basis.
A person that I only know from a message board used her frequent flyer miles and paid for my trip to Australia…not only that but she booked me, first-class, both ways.
Velvetrose
Putting the “Giving” in Thanksgiving
When I was in first grade, my mom was really struggling financially. She mentioned something about how hard Thanksgiving was going to be to another mom.
Well, the week before Thanksgiving, there was a raffle where we could win an entire Thanksgiving dinner. My teacher gave every student two cards from a deck.
When she gave me mine, she kind of said “wait” and checked them before she gave them back to me. I won the raffle.
A Mechanic with a Heart
Last month, I dropped my car off to this mechanic that apparently is good with Volkswagens.
I explained to him that I have NO idea what’s wrong with my car and a handful of other mechanics have already looked at it and they never seem to fix it (and I always get billed).
So, a month goes by, he calls me and tells me he’s been doing what he can to the car, but nothing seems to work.
Therefore, it cannot pass inspection. Sigh. I go to his garage today, meet with him and talk a bit about what I can do if I want to sell the car.
Finally, I ask, “What do I owe you?” He says, “Nothing, don’t worry about it” I told him I can afford what he would charge for an inspection, at least let me pay that.
He refused any money from me and offered to tow my car back to my place, since I cannot drive a car that is not inspected.
Nice guy.
PackinSteel
Meals for New Mother
I had triplets last year and someone I work with has brought me a hot meal once a week or so for the entire first year of their lives so I wouldn’t have to worry about cooking.
The thing is, she drops them off ninja-style, not wanting to impose. She’ll text me that she left something on the porch. It has been one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me.
Jaberkaty
Acts of Kindness
On September 14th, 1986, my dad dropped me off at boarding school and gave me a five-dollar bill. I never heard from him again. He never paid my tuition bill. So from the age of 14, I took every job I could get and worked my way through. At $4 an hour, I didn’t even come close to paying off my entire bill, but the school let me stick around because I was a model student in and out of the classroom. We get to graduation. I opened my little diploma thing expecting to see a bill in five figures. Instead there was a note.
Congratulations on your graduation. A group of us who believe in you and love you have taken care of your bill. We are proud to present you with your diploma.
I later found out that one of my friend’s dad, a fairly well off dentist, went fundraising among his golf buddies because he was having none of my entering life at eighteen under crushing debt.
stupidlyugly
Forever Grateful
When my husband was diagnosed with lung cancer in August of 1999 he was working for a small family-owned trucking company. Once they were forced to take him off their insurance they contacted me about paying for Cobra insurance. I was a stay at home mom and had no money to pay for that, thanked them for the information and hung up. Two days later I got a call from the daughter-in-law of the owner. She said that I would be getting a paper in the mail that I was to sign. Paper said that I agreed to pay for our part of the Cobra and that the policy would be instated on such & such a date. I said…but I told you…I can’t pay for that. She said I was not to worry about it, just do it. I did. Someone in the family called me once a week to keep tabs on how he was doing up until his death in Jan of 2000. They, obviously, thought a great deal of him. Forever grateful.
snakehag
40 Years Later
When my dad was in college his car broke down one night on the side of a road that was not very busy. The first person going by stopped and gave my dad a ride to a service station. It turned out that the guy who picked my dad up also attended the same college and they started hanging out.
Now, close to 40 years later, they’re still very close friends.
Nostromo
Competitive Kindness
When I was little I did an indoor rec league of soccer with this other little girl who was very small for her age and incredibly rich (this becomes relevant lol). We got along really well and had a lot of fun but apparently, kids at her private school picked on her a lot. She had so much fun with the “fun only” rec league she wanted to go out for the competitive traveling team but they told her she wasn’t good enough. So, her incredibly awesome mom decided to start a “B” team that was a little less competitive for others who wanted to play. She called my mom up and asked if I would try out. I did and I made the team but the traveling league was waaaaaay more expensive and we just couldn’t afford it and it was supposedly too late to apply for a grant so my mom told her, unfortunately, I wouldn’t be able to play. Later that day she called my mom back and told her she had been able to secure me a late scholarship from the league and I would be 100% covered. When I was a little older and her daughter no longer played for us ( they moved 🙁 ) my soccer coach admitted to my mom that this woman paid for my year of soccer herself and bought my jacket. Their entire family was the sweetest people you ever met and it made me feel incredible (albeit a little guilty) that she cared enough about us getting to play together that she would do that for me especially despite the fact they barely knew us.
corcar86
Doting Daycare Attendant
As a struggling single mom, I had trouble paying the daycare bills. This was especially hard if child support didn’t come, which was often. The daycare director allowed my child to attend without me paying on time. She would delete all late fees and allow me to slowly catch up. They would stay after hours if my job ran late and meet me. They became a kind of family for my son and me.
I tried to give back when I was an elementary education student by volunteering and helping out. I ended up going to school with some of the girls working there. We are all teachers now and trade lesson ideas and job opportunities.
Arthropody
Holiday Mishap
My family and I spent Christmas in Hawaii, and on our trip back (we had about a 5-hour drive to get back home from the airport) we stopped at a rest area. I had been looking at photos from our trip on our digital camera, and it must have been in my lap when I got out of the car and dropped into the parking lot. When we got home, I looked high and low for the camera and couldn’t find it anywhere. A few weeks later, we got a call from a police officer who lived in our state’s capital (not where we lived) saying someone had found the camera. On it, was a picture of my folk’s motorhome (from a previous trip) and you could make out the license plate number. This guy was from another state, just passing through, found our camera at the rest area, contacted the police with the plate number, the police looked up the plate, and contacted us! The guy then mailed us back our camera. It was the nicest thing a stranger had ever done for us. We mailed him back a thank you card and a gift certificate to a restaurant in their area. “Today you, tomorrow me.”
jbev25
A Shoe Savior
This is a tiny tiny thing, but it really made me feel happy. I’m in Amsterdam right now, and on my second day of being here, I ripped my converse apart. Great. They’re my only sneakers and a pair here would cost a lot more than at home. Eventually, I go to a tailor and I feel bad about handing this pair of ratty kind of smelly shoes to him. I also came in about half an hour before he closed, but it was the only time I could. I don’t know dutch and it seems he speaks mostly dutch/Italian but a little English. He takes my shoes and seems to stop listening to me. Sews them up right there, comes out and gives it to me. I take out my wallet but by the time I saw how much? he waves me off and goes back to the office in the back.
From my experiences, people have been so kind, friendly and helpful here.
Nougat
Paying It Forward
You have heard this from many people over these last few years with the economy, but; I lost my job, then lost my house, then lost my car. Pretty bad situation for anyone that has had this happen. My friend was moving from MI to S.C. and she asked me to help her move into her apt. My other friend drove me to S.C. so we could both help out. I am in GA, so not too far away. When I left from that weekend, she handed me a set of keys and said that she realized that since she and her husband work for the same company, they do not need a car, the car was paid off and they gave me their other car!!!! OMG! Who does that? Gives someone a car? I have been blessed every since 🙂 Thanks to my BFF
PuffBear
An Ex with a Heart
On a similar note, at one point I lost my job and my girlfriend of 2 years left me so I couldn’t pay for my apartment anymore. Since my name was on the lease I was forced to figure something out. I had a chat with my landlord and told him the truth.
His response? “Don’t worry about it, stay until you can figure something out.”
I looked for a job for 2 1/2 months until I felt so bad about staying there rent-free so I packed all of my stuff and moved back into my parent’s basement. He never asked for a dime of back rent.
I have since joined the military, getting married, and have a house of my own, but I will never forget that man’s act of kindness.
shadowsinseptember
Celebrity Kindness
I think you’ll like this one, Reddit. When I was in college I was a Physics major aiming to be an Astrophysicist but it was just killing me. I was having a whole identity crisis and feeling worthless and why couldn’t I wrap my head around some of these things? In a move of desperation, I left a message on Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s site asking for advice. To my GREAT surprise, he actually took time out to CALL ME and give me really honest and understanding advice about what I should do and be realistic about the world of Physics. I only graduated with a minor in Physics but I felt much better and will have a respect for both him and science forever. May not be a sob story, but at that fragile time in my life, it really made a huge difference.
omniumamore
What Neighbors Do
When my wife and I moved into our house we didn’t have a lawnmower, because before that we had lived in apartments or rental properties where a lawnmower was provided to us. We also didn’t have the money to buy one at that point. So for a month our grass sat and grew until we finally got one. I got it put together and started mowing, but it was getting fairly late in the day at that point.
As I started mowing, our across the street neighbor was sitting in a lawn chair on his driveway with his dog, as he does every evening. He watched me mow for a while as I pushed the mower across our backyard. Finally, without a word, he put his dog back inside his fence, started up his riding mower, and did the front yard for me. When I went to thank him he just said, “Well, I wasn’t doing anything, and that’s what neighbors do.”
No Words Needed
I once failed a test in college and was really upset. As I was taking the bus home I was trying really hard to hold it together long enough to not cry in public, by trying to hide my tears with my sleeve. A girl walked over, handed me a tissue without saying a word, and went back to her seat. It was so nice to have a stranger help me keep it together without trying to pry into my business.
Jellylamp
A Simple Touch Goes A Long Way
Once I lost a bet with a girl I liked and another girl that I had to take them out to dinner (I was dying to lose this bet).
So I took them both out, and on the way home, it was just me and her. She and I were talking waiting for a bus home, and she said something about how her friends or people filled kinds of rolls in her life.
I asked what my role was.
She said I was “A good friend who takes me to dinner.”
This was essentially my first love, and immediately my stomach fell out of my body. I kept it together a couple more minutes and took a separate bus home (different directions).
The whole way back I was sobbing like a madman. I had my face pressed against the glass so no one would see me… impossible to pull off… And the glass was fogged up around my face, but clear where my face was rubbing the fog away as I was shaking heavily.
Some random guy got up and sat down next to me, I guess before he noticed what was going on. After a few minutes, he just started patting my back, which went on for the next 5-15 minutes till my stop. I didn’t get it together, but I said thanks and sobbed my way off the bus and home.
Apostolate
Porch Gift
My husband died suddenly at 30 years old. I was 26 and had three small children. Things were really tough but I was proud so I couldn’t bring myself to ask anyone for help. (Read:stupid) Every Friday night, when I came home from work, there were bags of groceries on my porch. A lot of little things would happen as my grass would mysteriously get cut. The kicker was coming home after a really rough day and finding a Christmas tree on my porch. I was working two jobs and it was the week before Christmas. I hadn’t had the time or money to buy a tree. I decided it wasn’t that important. I cried my eyes out over that tree. It meant the world to me and my kids. I never found out who this angel was, but I am so thankful they were there during a really hard time. I try to pass on the kindness because I know what it meant to me.
justawife1966
An Anonymous Angel
When I was really little my mom had cancer. We were never that we’ll off and so my mom and dad couldn’t afford health insurance. Well anyways, after tons of cancer treatments, surgery, chemo, radiation, etc they owed thousand and thousands in hospital bills. My mom went in one day to make a payment and they told her someone covered it. They wouldn’t tell my mom who did it. My mom thinks it was her doctor. he was always telling her not to worry because everything will work out. 18 years later she still sends him holiday cards with a special handwritten note saying thank you.
xLittleOneX
A Smile and Pizza
There’s a homeless man that sits quietly near the entrance of my office building. I pass him by every morning and afternoon. He’s always struck me as different from the rest of New York’s downtrodden. He doesn’t beg. He doesn’t yell. He just sits quietly, waiting. Sometimes he talks to himself then smiles sadly or laughs quietly. It’s almost as if he’s telling himself stories to feel better. Maybe forget for a moment where he is. It’s the smile that gets to me.
I walked by him just now, and he was gnawing on an old pizza crust. I continued as I always do. And then this thread popped into my head. I turned around, bought two slices of pizza and a coke from the cornerstore, then walked back to give it to him.
I said, “Here you should take this.”
He said, “Really? And the coke too?” Like it was Christmas. Then he smiled that damn smile again and thanked me.
I made it to just around the corner before the tears came. Hard to type this right now on the phone. Basically bawling on a random New York street and getting strange looks.
I plan to buy that man pizza at least once a week from now on. I think I’m doing it mostly for me.
I should thank him for that.
dru171
Compassionate Care
My wife and I are both 30, been married 4 years and are unable to have children naturally. We have just gotten to the point financially where we can afford our first IVF treatment.
We were planning on taking out a loan for the full amount of $16,000 (our insurance doesn’t cover it) and then using our savings to pay for the meds, an additional 5 grand. We had all this ready to go, a 4-year loan at 11%, when we got a call from my wife’s uncle.
We don’t know him very well but were floored to learn he wanted to lend us the money, including a $2500 gift for the meds… He insisted that we didn’t need to worry about paying him back but we will, and we will love him forever for his generosity.
We are lower middle class and have student loans, so this was a godsend. There are amazing people in this world.
Human Resources Angel
I interned in the corporate office of a beef packing company my last year of college and they hired me upon graduation. I knew I was going to lose my parents’ health insurance coverage through their employer after graduating, so I inquired about COBRA (you can stay in your current employer-sponsored plan, but you have to pay the full premium). Turns out my dad’s insurance is awesome because it was $650 a month!
I was floored. I knew nothing about individual health plans. So I called the HR lady thinking maybe she could give me some advice. I explained my situation and she said told me to take the COBRA and they’d cut me a check for the difference between what employees paid in premiums (about $80 a month) and what I was paying for the COBRA.
I was so grateful. She didn’t have to do that and I wasn’t even an official employee yet. Made my day for sure!
DorkasaurusBBQ
Breakdown Bill
A few years ago, my truck broke down on the way to the store. I had been out of work for a while, but we were getting by on unemployment (thank God for my wife’s bookkeeping skills – she kept all the bills paid on time while I was off). I had the truck towed to a local garage and was told that the timing belt was broken, at a cost of $500 to repair. I had to have the truck, so I said OK.
A few days later, when they said it was ready, I came in to pick it up, and was told that the bill had been taken care of by my wife’s church. My wife and I are different religions, and we go to different churches, but I know a lot of the people that go to her’s, and they are all great. My wife had mentioned it to someone she knew in the church, just in passing, but we wouldn’t have ever considered asking for help.
I found out later that the church had been able to donate $300, and the assistant minister and a friend of our’s (also from her church) had each personally donated $100 to cover it. Our friend’s wife told us that those two had waited outside the repair shop when it opened (acting like a couple of kids, in her words) so they could pay for it before I got there.
I was totally flabbergasted. That’s the closest I’ve come to crying in front of other people in a long time. I’ve tried (and will continue to try) to help them out any way I can now that I’m working again.
woodowl
Prom Night Savior
Prom night, 2004. My date and I had just left and were cruising around in my truck. This was a local strip that everyone cruised on Fridays or Saturdays. I notice some smoke coming out of the hood so I pulled into a nearby Sonic. This was a modified street truck, so of course, it could have been a lot of things.
After letting it sit and cool, I start it up. Immediately, the people next to me started hollering to turn it off. Turns out my transmission fluid line burst, and was spraying fluid all over the headers. I guess it was so bad they could see it spraying.
Seeing that I was in my tux and my date was still in her dress, I wasn’t sure how to proceed. Without hesitation, this guy crawled under my truck and started looking around. He told this other guy to drive me down to AutoZone and get some fluid. He managed to get it temporarily fixed, enough for me to drive home. He was covered in oil and trans fluid.
I thanked him over and over. All he said was “No problem. Enjoy your night and don’t get your suit dirty”.
okieT2
A Grandfather’s Gift
My grandfather is one of the most intelligent people I know. He went to Harvard for law, was a lawyer for some years, became a judge, and then retired. With his intelligence always came a sort of brusque air about him. He never showed me affection, bought me presents for my birthday, or anything like that. This bothered me up until I was about 12. That’s when I learned to just love him for who he is.
Fast forward to two months ago. I am going into my senior year of high school. My mother gets a letter from my grandfather, and in it, he wants to know where I am looking at for college. He says that he doesn’t want me to live with debt after I am done with college. He says no one should be punished for getting an education. He says, wait for it, that he’s been saving since the day I was born to pay for my college tuition. He didn’t write I love you in that letter, but he said it. And I have never been so touched or shocked by any single act in my entire life. I am endlessly thankful.
Great, now I’m crying.
PrecisePrecision
Home for the Holidays
I was unemployed for a painfully long time and was taking any sporadic 4-hour shifts a temp company could get me. At one job, the owner asked what I was doing for Christmas and I told her I was just staying in town. She asked about my family, who all live 4000km away. I admitted that I couldn’t really afford to go home for the holidays but was thankful for Skype. She asked me as I was leaving how much the temp company was paying me – when I told her ($12 vs the $30 she was being billed), she asked if she could call me directly and pay me the $30. The next two weeks she had me in full-time, with not much to do. Sometimes we’d just chat or she’d show me how some of their products worked. I made enough extra those 2 weeks to get a plane ticket home for Christmas, and on my last day, she gave me a card with $300 cash in it. It said, “you deserve a raise!”
Ahh, crying just thinking about it. Working full time (elsewhere) now but my goodness poverty is depressing.
breakawayy
An Uncle’s Selflessness
Right after I got married my uncle was kind enough to loan, interest-free, my husband and me $5000 so he could get his tech certificates. A few months later I was in a terrible car accident and missed nearly a month of work due to surgery and recovery time. My uncle called me up and said that we should take a few months break from the loan payments until I was back on my feet and back to work. The loan had already been so generous and I was pretty stressed under the situation. I felt like the world had been lifted off my shoulders. After we bought a replacement car and paid off all the medical bills we had just enough left over to pay my uncle back in full. Best check I ever got to write.
Also, my husband has since had some really amazing job opportunities because of his tech certificates. I know my uncle is family but I feel like he really went above and beyond.
seeminglysquare
Persistence Pays Off
I go to a pretty expensive private college that my family would in no way be able to afford without financial aid. The school was my top choice and when I got in they offered me a pretty decent aid package. It was still a bit of a financial stretch for my family to send me there, but we figured it was for the best – I’d be getting a great education, after all.
Around mid-May of my freshman year I get a call from my parents telling me that they just don’t think we could pay for another year, let alone three more years. I was devastated. I had been flourishing at the school – great grades, great friends, and I had been recently hired to be an RA for the next year. Heartbroken only puts it mildly.
I scheduled a meeting with my academic advisor (with whom I had grown very close over the course of the year) to let her know that I would not be returning in the fall. I cried. She cried.
And then, unbeknownst to me, she marched right down to the financial aid office and hand-wrote an aid appeal for my sake. The financial aid office emailed me the next day with a $40,000 scholarship offer.
I was astounded. I am now able to attend my dream school for about $5,000 a year with minimal student loans. AWESOME.
kfster
Lending A Helping Hand
When I was about 17 or 18 I got in a pretty bad car accident where a truck hit my car that I had bought only a few months before. With my car being totaled after that and my insurance not covering it, I had no way to get to the two jobs I worked at the time. One of my jobs was a local coffee shop. We had a regular that came in every day, a very friendly guy about 60 years old. He always tipped well and made us all laugh. One day he came in I was telling him about how stressed and upset I was about the accident and he simply replied with “I’ll help you buy a car.” I looked up like uh what? And he repeated “I’ll help you buy a car. I know what it’s like to be 18 and struggling. I’ll give you $1500 and you can pay me back monthly, no interest. My divorce left me with 100 grand and it’s just sitting in the bank.” No one else in my family had that kind of money or any really to help me buy a car. I bought a car a few weeks later. I don’t know what I would have done without him.
LizaLovesYou
An Unexpected Sober Buddy
I got blackout drunk at a frat party this past year and passed out on their neighbor’s lawn. Anyway, two girls I had never met brought me home in their taxi and left me off at my dorm which was super nice of them. After that I passed out next to our security guard booth and the guard on duty was about to call an ambulance and the cops. Anyway, this girl who has never even seen me before and lived in my dorm convinced the security guard I was a good friend and that I was just tired from a long day so she took me up to my room and tucked me in. I met her the next day. I was so happy that someone would do that for me, especially in college given how many times all of my fellow students and I have passed by way too drunk people who look like they’re about to get in some trouble and ignore it. It changed how I look at people who are way too drunk, I try to help them out whenever I can now.
brickwall5
School to the Rescue
When I first moved to Seattle I was freshly divorced, getting no child support, raising three kids and taking classes at college on my single income, finally got my son diagnosed as high functioning autistic, and then my car broke and I had to replace it.
Christmas, and I had nothing. Couldn’t even buy a Christmas tree. First Christmas in a new city with no friends or family around and…. no Christmas.
My son’s school came to the rescue. They really liked my son, and wanted to do everything they could to help, so they said they would give us some Christmas presents. Gave them a list of a few things, and sizes, and came back a month later….
It took 4 trips to get everything in the car. There was a DS for my son, pants, jackets, gift cards, 2 iPod shuffles (one for each daughter), two $50 iTunes cards, and $150 for gas.
There was at least $500 in gifts for us. I cried. My kids were so happy Christmas morning. And it was just enough to get me through the tough three months without missing a single bill.
This wasn’t just a Christmas. This was a new lease on life. This allowed me to finally get ahead just enough that I could make a life for my children and me after years stuck in a horrible marriage, poor and wondering what I was going to lose next.
There are some amazing people in this world.
anonymous
A Teacher’s Wisdom
Not me, but my 8th-grade history teacher basically told us his life story on the first day of school. He used to come to school every day in ragged clothes, un-showered, and hungry. One of his teachers in elementary school told him to start coming in early if he could, and so early in the morning when the other kids weren’t there yet (to avoid embarrassment), she started bringing food and clothing for him and got the janitor to unlock the showers in the bathrooms for him. Eventually, his parents got fed up with him and that same teacher adopted him and raised him as her own.
He was a good teacher, he taught the merits of hard work more than he taught history, but he was still a damned good history teacher.
UncleVinnie
Luck Changes
This happened very recently. My fiance and I have been really down on our luck, I have chronic back pain and had to quit working at the hospital and he works a min. wage job while going to school. We had just enough money to pay rent with no money left over for food. Every couple of months or so he gets a gift card to his work (a tobacco shop) for about $10, we use on what little food they have for sale. I had called him at work one night to see if he had any money on the last gift card so maybe we could buy something for dinner, he didn’t.
He came home that night with a full bag of groceries. One of his co-workers had overheard him talking to me and got them for us when he got off work and brought them back to the store. It was the nicest thing anyone could have done for us, I cried then and I am tearing up now thinking of how amazing that was. People can be so amazing.
New Job Blessings
I was in a dead-end job, close to getting kicked out of my home and barely able to afford my medicine, let alone food, had nowhere to go, and I had applied to a medical center I knew paid well, trains, and has good medical. They weren’t really hiring at the time but I bothered them a couple of times to check back on my application. They eventually broke and gave me an interview, they thought I was a good people person and had me back for a second interview, they thought I was very motivated, they gave me a part-time job, only a few hours a week, but after showing my great work ethic, working extra hard, and doing everything I can to help and learn, they moved me to full time, and were impressed with me and kept me on and advanced my training, and paid me better as I moved up. within 2 months of working there I could afford my rent and my meds, within 6 I was back on top of my finances and even had a bit of extra cash. my management even told me “we were really unsure with you squid-bastard, but you ended up being one of our best hires in years, you were like striking gold”. Made me proud to work there and it has made me happier than possible.
Squid-Bastard
Banquet Blessings
When I was in high school, I was on one of those crazy competitive cheer teams. We did a ton of fundraising, but in order to go to nationals, we each had to come up with ~$700 (my sister was also on the team). I should mention here that we lived in one of the wealthiest communities in California and most of the girls on our team came from REALLY rich families. My parents weren’t loaded by any means but they were able to help us out. At the end of the year, we had our annual banquet. All the girls brought a rose for their parents and made a speech thanking them for their support. Suddenly, one girl ended her speech by thanking my mom. Then another girl. It turns out that they weren’t able to afford to go to nationals and while literally, every other mom on the team talked about how we would have to go without them, my mom was the only one who said, “this is ridiculous, how can we not all pitch in?” Nobody spoke up. She ended up using the money she put aside for my dad and her to go watch us and paid for both of them in full. The best part was, she never told us. She and my dad just quietly stepped up to the plate and told us they had to work and couldn’t cheering go. We would have never known they did it until the girls gave them the roses.
Emooply
A New Lease on Life
When I was a junior in college, I finally had enough of everything one night. Everything that was going wrong just piled up on me, and I didn’t have the personal skills to cope with it. I got in my car (leaving my cell phone in my dorm room because I didn’t want to be easily traced) and started driving to a wooded area outside of the city. I had rope in my car; my plan was to go hang myself from a tree.
A couple miles up the road my tire went flat suddenly. I pulled off the road and cried in my car for a little bit (“I can’t even kill myself without screwing it up.”)
There was only one house around for quite a ways. The woman living there was cooking dinner. But she invited me in, and let me sit on her couch and play with her cat as we waited for her husband to come home from work. When he came home, he used that rope to tow my car back to campus before eating the delicious smelling dinner his wife had been cooking.
It’s nothing spectacular, and maybe it’s what anyone would have done, but that flat tire and that generous couple saved me that night. I sent them an anonymous thank-you card in the mail, but I don’t think I could ever repay them for their kindness.
Burritos and Friendship
My friend and I would always get burritos on Fridays for lunch. We’d take our lunch break together, and get burritos from the taco truck. It became our ritual. When he switched jobs, I would still go get two burritos, drive over to his new workplace and drop off his burrito. We didn’t have a whole lot of time to have lunch together, but still man, it was our ritual. I switched jobs and then sadly my friend went to jail for a little while. Years later, I was working in the city. It was a stressful gig and I didn’t have time for friends or any time for myself for that matter. One Friday afternoon one of the warehouse guys tells me “Hey there’s a guy outside, he asked if you were here.” I walked out and there was my friend that I hadn’t seen in almost two years, holding up a plastic bag with two burritos inside. He had taken the train and three buses to get there.
TheDaliTrauma
The Joy Helping Others
About twelve years ago I was staying at a friend’s place in Albuquerque. I went out looking for jobs, but I only had enough money to get to the area I needed to get to. I ended up asking people for change to get back and when I asked one guy if I could borrow seventy cents he replied with “You can’t borrow it…but you can have it” and then gave me a dollar in change.
A few years ago our family was homeless and totally broke. I had an asthma attack one night and ended up in the ER for a few hours. They sent me home (a two-mile walk back to our motel) with two prescriptions, one a rescue inhaler and the other for some steroid or something. We were on Medicaid but very naive as to how it all worked. We had a card that we thought had funds on it to help out when needed. So the next day, my wife, daughter, and I walk a mile and a half to the nearest CVS and put in the request for the prescription. It came out to ten bucks and we try using the card. No dice. Turns out, it’s just an ID card. So we have zero money and no way for me to get an inhaler that I desperately need. Defeated, we just start walking away when the pharmacist calls out “Hey, you forgot something!”. I turn around and he hands me the bag with meds and says he paid for it. My wife and I broke down in tears when we got outside while our daughter just stared at us in confusion.
czjay
A New Life Transition
My husband is transgendered–he was born female. After being on testosterone for about 8 months, he wanted top surgery–he had to use binders, and had severe back problems, and the binders were excruciating. However, the surgery costs $7,500 and we were in college. He was going to resort to a loan–that’s how fundamentally important this was to his well-being, both physically and emotionally. An old friend of his mother’s, who had taken it upon herself to help him after his mother’s death (he grew up in a brutally abusive family and his father never gave him anything), decided that she and her husband would help. They gave my husband every cent of the surgery money as a “loan.” For our wedding, they forgave it. I cried that day–he has changed so much, become so much happier and more comfortable in his skin since that surgery. They changed his life, out of the goodness of their hearts.
BillytheBrave