Stories of Kindness from Around the World

Coming home from a coffee shop today, we had our old truck loaded down with three 50-gal. barrels of mostly coffee grounds that we use to make compost.  My husband had laid them down in the truck, and as we came up the ramp to a major intersection the tailgate hinge broke and all the barrels rolled out into the street behind us. Thank goodness there were no cars immediately behind us, which was a bit of a miracle since it was lunch hour. One barrel rolled right into a lane, and the two others were partially in a lane.  We slammed on the brakes, jumped out, and I retrieved the closest one while my husband started running back toward the ramp to get the other two.

I knew that one of the ones he was going to get was extremely heavy; we had had a horrible time getting it into the truck in the first place.  We were wondering how we were going to retrieve them AND load them without getting killed by those cars coming off the ramp going 60 mph. As my husband grabbed the one that I had pulled out of the lane and was pulling it back toward the truck, I ran to try and get the others out of harm's way.

I looked behind me, and there was this little "angel of mercy" running toward me yelling "I got it, I got it!"  It was this wiry little guy in a baseball cap with grubby hands and a nice smile who seemed to come out of nowhere. He immediately took that barrel from me and drug it by himself back to the truck while I ran back to try and get the super heavy one.  When he had that one secure, he came back to help me and was surprised how heavy this 3rd one was.  I explained it was full of coffee grounds and he laughed. I was really no help with that one, but he and my husband pulled it the 50-60 yards back to the truck. Getting it IN the truck was another thing, but they did it, and none of us got killed.

We asked him if we could pay him something for his help, and he didn't answer.  He sort of looked like he didn't really know what to say, so we handed him a $20, and we got back in the truck. It was then that we noticed the guy who had helped us had returned to the side of the road where he was holding a sign that read "out of work; anything will help." We sure wished we'd given him more than $20. His quick response might well have saved a life, either ours or someone else's who so easily could have slammed into one of those large heavy barrels.

I pass by that intersection every few days and look for him but so far haven't seen him.  We will always remember his help and certainly will pass along this selfless kindness.