Feeling So Sick I Couldn’t Walk As a Stranger Practically Supported Me to a Restroom.
At the age of 19 years old, my regular journey to work was on an express bus. It was perpetually full and would always be standing room only by the time I boarded.
During a certain commute, I was feeling terribly ill when the coach lurched around each corner. I continuously reassured myself to endure for a few more stops before the bus arrived at my destination, so I could then rush hurriedly for the nearest public restroom to throw up.
We were coming down the avenue close to the destination as I understood I was unable to make it. Suddenly, it seemed a fog descended upon me. My vision turned hazy and muffled; similar to when one cut the sound. My mind raced, “I will lose consciousness”.
Fortunately, I stood near the front of the bus, allowing me to take a couple of steps to ask the driver and told the operator to pull over, informing him I was going to be sick. He promptly opened the bus doors and I stumbled out out onto the street.
I was determined not to vomit before multiple lanes of cars, so I forced myself up and endeavored to stumble across to the park across the road, where I believed I’d at least be able to secretly conceal myself among some shrubs to throw up. But then I apparently fainted. I sensed my physical self, yet I couldn’t walk or see properly, leading me to start inching my way to the grassy area.
“Everything alright, love?”
Right then, I got scooped up. There was someone holding me and a man’s voice asked, “Are you okay, dear?” I explained to this mysterious stranger that I required to be sick. So he virtually helped me walk down into an adjacent building and put me inside the women’s restroom. He wanted to know whether I required him to wait for me but I declined.
A few minutes later, I had recovered enough to sit on the restroom floor and from outside the door I heard his voice asking, “Do you need anything, love? Can I get you something?” I wasn’t able to rise at that moment but I did succeed to say thank you and after a few more minutes was able to move my legs. I returned home and then spent several days getting over what was later diagnosed as a nasty tummy bug.
I did not see that man’s face – just his lower half and the big container for tools he was carrying – but he helped me, at a moment I was at my most vulnerable.
Often this world can make you defensive, aggressive and competitive. What he did was the kind of action that melts away that protective shell. He was proof that humanity’s innate tendency leans toward compassion, a quality I adore about humanity.