In Such Poor Health I Couldn’t Walk Until a Fellow Passenger Practically Supported Me to a Restroom.

At the age of my late teens, my morning travel involved an crowded coach. It was perpetually jammed and was consistently without any seats once I boarded.

One particular morning, I started experiencing terribly ill when the coach lurched around the bends. I kept telling myself to endure another few kilometres until the bus arrived at where I needed to get off, so I could then sprint quickly for the nearest public toilet to be sick.

As we neared the road leading to the stop when I understood I was unable to last. Suddenly, it seemed a fog descended upon me. Everything just went hazy and muffled; as if someone muted everything. I said to myself, “I’m going to faint”.

Thankfully, I was positioned toward the front inside the vehicle, allowing me to take several steps to ask the driver and requested that the driver to open the doors, explaining to him I needed to get ill. He promptly opened the bus doors and I stumbled out onto the sidewalk.

I was determined to not get sick in view of a busy multi-lane road, so I picked myself up and began attempting to make my way to the park across the road, where I believed it would allow me to discreetly hide among some shrubs to throw up. Yet I must have lost consciousness. I could feel my limbs, but I couldn’t walk or see properly, so I began dragging myself toward the grassy area.

“You right, love?”

In that instant, someone picked me up. I felt an arm around my waist and a stranger inquired, “Are you okay, dear?” I managed to tell the unknown man that I had to to get to a bathroom. So he virtually helped me walk over to a nearby building and put me inside the women’s restroom. He asked me if I wanted him to stay with me but I refused.

A few minutes later, I had recovered sufficiently to sit down when from beyond the door came him inquire, “Are you OK, love? Is there anything you require?” I was incapable to stand up just then but I was able to thank him and after a few more minutes recovered the use of my feet. I made my way home passing the following days getting over what was later diagnosed as a severe stomach virus.

I never glimpsed the stranger’s face – merely his legs and the big container for tools he was carrying – but he saved me, when I was at my most vulnerable.

Many times, life has a way of making you guarded, hostile, and combative. What he did was the kind of action that melts away that protective shell. He served as evidence that humanity’s innate tendency is towards kindness, something I love about humanity.