In Such Poor Health I Couldn’t Walk As a Stranger Essentially Lifted Me to the Toilets.
During my nineteenth year, my regular journey to work meant taking an express bus. It was perpetually jammed and would always be standing room only by the time I got on.
One particular morning, I was feeling incredibly sick as the bus lurched around the bends. I kept telling myself to hold on just a little longer so the bus could reached where I needed to get off, and then I could make a mad dash for the nearest public toilet to be sick.
We were coming down the street towards my stop and I realised I was unable to hold on. Suddenly, it seemed a veil came over me. My vision turned blank and silent; like someone had turned off the audio. My mind raced, “I will lose consciousness”.
Thankfully, I was positioned near the front inside the vehicle, so I managed a couple of steps forward and asked the driver to open the doors, explaining to him I needed to vomit. The driver opened the bus doors and I hurriedly stepped onto the sidewalk.
My intention was to avoid being sick in front of a busy multi-lane road, so I picked myself up and began attempting to stumble across to the park opposite the street, where I believed I’d at least be able to find some privacy behind a bush to vomit. However I must have lost consciousness. I sensed my body but I was unable to walk or see properly, so I began inching my way to the park.
“Everything alright, love?”
Right then, someone picked me up. There was someone holding me and heard a man say, “Everything alright, love?” I told this unknown man that I needed to be sick. Therefore, he almost carried me over to an adjacent building and placed me in the ladies’ toilets. He asked me if I needed him to wait for me but I declined.
A few minutes later, I regained my composure sufficiently to sit on the toilet and from the other side of the stall I heard his voice asking, “Are you OK, love? Can I get you something?” I could not to get up at that moment but did manage to say thank you and shortly thereafter recovered the use of my limbs. I returned home and spent the following days healing from what turned out to be a horrible case of gastroenteritis.
I did not see his features – merely his legs and a large container for tools he had with him – but he helped me, when I was completely helpless.
Many times, life can make you guarded, hostile, and combative. His act was the type of kindness that undoes that emotional callousness. He was proof that humanity’s innate tendency is to be kind, a quality I adore about my fellow humans.
