When I was quite little – maybe 3 years old – I was riding on the highway with my Mom and the car broke down. This was before cell phones. Back then, It was just you and your vehicle waiting on a Good Samaritan while hundreds of cars whizzed past without giving you a second look. Being 3, I don’t think I really understood the situation, but I remember that Mom seemed frustrated and worried. I was more interested in whatever toy I had brought along for the ride. Then, before too long, a truck pulled over. It had a Jesus fish on the bumper. The people spoke to my Mom and offered to help get her to a gas station pay phone and she agreed. As I crawled in after her, I gleefully thought, “How wonderful that my Mom just so happens to know these nice, helpful people so that we can get moving! How lucky is that that they drove past at just this very moment?” And I went back to my toy.
I am, perhaps, a little embarrassed to admit that I didn’t rethink that assessment of the situation until I was in high school – not because I figured it out, but because I randomly asked Mom about it. “Of course I didn’t know them,” she said. “I was scared to get into the car with you there, but I thought maybe the Jesus fish meant that we’d be okay.”
It had never occurred to me that we weren’t safe and that Mom took a risk. But suddenly, the whole event changed in my mind. We were stranded, helpless, vulnerable and Mom took a chance on the kindness of strangers. And the people that picked us up took a chance that the woman with a child wasn’t – I dunno – hiding a gun in her purse to steal their car and their wallets. If you’ve met my mother, you’ll know how absurd that would be, but still… In offering to help us, they, too, were vulnerable. We all could’ve gotten hurt, but, instead, that shared vulnerability helped us all move forward. Moments of kindness like this can speak to our hearts and inspire us.