Feeling So Sick Walking Was Impossible When a Man Virtually Carried Me to a Bathroom.
At the age of my late teens, my daily commute meant taking an express bus. It was perpetually jammed and was consistently standing room only once I stepped aboard.
One particular morning, I started experiencing terribly ill as the bus rocked around the bends. I continuously reassured myself to hold on another few kilometres until the bus reached my stop, so I could then make a mad dash toward the most convenient washroom to throw up.
We were coming down the avenue close to the stop when I understood I wasn’t going to hold on. Suddenly, it seemed a veil came over me. Everything just went blank and silent; similar to when one turned off the audio. My mind raced, “I’m going to faint”.
Luckily I was close to the driver on the bus, allowing me to take several steps toward the driver and requested that the driver to open the doors, telling him I was going to be sick. He promptly opened the bus doors and I hurriedly stepped out onto the street.
I was determined not to vomit in front of multiple lanes of cars, so I forced myself up and started trying to make my way to the park opposite the street, where I thought I could at least find some privacy among some shrubs to be sick. However I apparently fainted. I could feel my physical self, yet I couldn’t walk or see properly, leading me to start inching my way to the park.
“Are you okay, dear?”
Right then, I got scooped up. I felt a strong arm supporting me and a man’s voice asked, “You right, love?” I explained to this kind passerby that I needed to be sick. Therefore, he almost carried me down into an adjacent building and placed me into the female bathroom. He wanted to know whether I required him to wait for me but I said no.
After a short while, I regained my composure enough to sit on the restroom floor when from beyond the stall I heard him inquire, “Do you need anything, love? Is there anything you require?” I wasn’t able to get up right away but I did succeed to thank him and following a brief period was able to move my feet. I got myself home and spent the following days healing from what turned out to be a severe stomach virus.
I never glimpsed that man’s face – merely his legs and the big metal toolbox he held – but he saved me, at a moment I was at my most vulnerable.
Many times, life has a way of making you self-protective, pushy, and rivalrous. His act was the type of kindness that reverses that hardening of the heart. He served as evidence that our default setting leans toward compassion, something I love in other people.
