In Such Poor Health Walking Was Impossible When a Man Virtually Carried Me to the Toilets.
Back when I was my late teens, my regular journey to work involved an express bus. It was perpetually crowded and would always be completely full by the time I boarded.
On one specific day, I began feeling terribly ill as the bus lurched around each corner. I kept telling myself to endure for a few more stops before the bus got to my destination, so I could then rush hurriedly for the nearest washroom to throw up.
As we neared the road leading to the destination as I realised I wasn’t going to hold on. All of a sudden, it was like a curtain fell over me. Everything just went hazy and muffled; similar to when one cut the sound. I said to myself, “I will lose consciousness”.
Luckily I was toward the front inside the vehicle, allowing me to take a couple of steps to ask the driver and told the operator to open the doors, explaining to him I was going to be sick. He opened the doors and I stumbled out onto the sidewalk.
My intention was not to vomit before multiple lanes of cars, so I picked myself up and started trying to make my way toward the green space across the road, where I thought I could at least find some privacy near some foliage to vomit. Yet I apparently lost consciousness. I was aware of my body but walking was impossible or see clearly, leading me to start inching my way to the grassy area.
“You right, love?”
Right then, someone picked me up. I felt a strong arm supporting me and heard a man say, “Are you okay, dear?” I explained to this unknown man that I needed to be sick. So he virtually helped me walk over to a close-by structure and guided me in the ladies’ toilets. He wanted to know whether I required him to wait for me but I said no.
After a short while, I had recovered to the point of sitting on the toilet and from the other side of the stall I heard him ask, “Are you OK, love? Is there anything you require?” I could not to get up right away but did manage to thank him and after a few more minutes regained the function of my feet. I returned home passing the following days healing from what turned out to be a horrible case of gastroenteritis.
I never saw that man’s face – merely his legs along with a sizable container for tools he held – but he saved me, when I was in my weakest state.
Often this world has a way of making you guarded, hostile, and combative. His act was the type of kindness that undoes that emotional callousness. He demonstrated that people’s natural inclination is to be kind, something I love about humanity.
