Stories of Kindness from Around the World

College was the best of times and the worst of times for me. I met the best friends of my life, had unimaginable experiences, and traveled to new places, but I also folded under more stress than I ever had to deal with before. As a result of bad grades, bad study skills, and pure burnout, I ended up being asked to take a semester off at the end of the first semester of my senior year. All the friends I had made were going to graduate and all I knew was that I wouldn't be graduating with them.

So I ended up going back home to live with my father and stepmother. To their credit, they were very cool about me coming back. I felt their support from the moment I walked in the door and they refused to let me feel like a failure. No matter how much they did for me, I still had part of me that longed to be back at school and I felt like I had totally messed up my future.

One morning not long after I had come home, my father woke me up saying that my stepmother was passed out on the kitchen floor. I ended up coming downstairs and trying to perfomr CPR on her but it was too late. She was already dead of a massive heart attack.

I'll never forget the look on my father's face when he was given the official news of her passing. I knew at that moment that I had to be strong for him because he needed someone to lean on. It was as if our roles had reversed and I was being the protective parent while he took the time to grieve. Later he would tell me how glad he was that I was home that semester because he needed me more than ever.

I guess the lesson I took from it all is that even in our darkest moments we can still be of help to someone that is going through something much harder. It's so easy to close ourselves off to the things going on around us, and feel that we are the only ones hurting, when helping someone else could actually be helping us heal ourselves.

Needless to say I ended up going back to college the next semester, and I got my degree. My father and I developed a bond that was even closer than it already was, and I have a much better ability to keep bad times in perspective.