In Such Poor Health I Was Unable to Walk Until a Fellow Passenger Essentially Lifted Me to a Restroom.
Back when I was 19 years old, my regular journey to work meant taking an express bus. The vehicle was always full and would always be completely full when I stepped aboard.
On one specific day, I started experiencing incredibly sick when the coach swayed around each corner. I repeatedly told myself to endure just a little longer so the bus could reached where I needed to get off, at which point I could make a mad dash to the closest washroom to vomit.
The bus was approaching the avenue close to the stop when I understood I wasn’t going to last. Suddenly, it seemed a curtain fell over me. My vision turned white and really quiet; as if someone muted everything. I said to myself, “I am about to pass out”.
Fortunately, I stood toward the front on the bus, so I managed a few steps forward and told the operator to stop, telling him that I was about to vomit. He opened the bus doors and I stumbled out onto the sidewalk.
I was resolved to avoid being sick in view of six lanes of traffic, so I forced myself up and endeavored to walk across to the park on the other side, thinking I could it would allow me to discreetly hide behind a bush to throw up. However I likely fainted. I was aware of my physical self, yet I couldn’t walk or see clearly, leading me to start inching my way to the park.
“You right, love?”
Right then, I was lifted up. There was an arm around my waist and heard a man say, “Everything alright, love?” I explained to this unknown man that I required to be sick. So he virtually helped me walk over to an adjacent building and put me inside the women’s restroom. He asked me if I wanted him to wait for me but I refused.
After a short while, I had recovered sufficiently to sit on the toilet and from outside the door came him ask, “Are you OK, love? Do you need anything?” I could not to get up at that moment but I was able to say thank you and shortly thereafter was able to move my legs. I returned home and spent several days getting over which was a nasty tummy bug.
I did not see his features – merely his legs and a large metal toolbox he was carrying – but he saved me, when I was at my most vulnerable.
Frequently, society tends to make people self-protective, pushy, and rivalrous. His was the sort of gesture that reverses that protective shell. He served as evidence that our default setting is to be kind, a trait I cherish in other people.
