Xanthippa's Chamberpot

At the beginning of September, my friend was hit by a truck while she was riding on her motorcycle.  Both of her legs were broken, one of them very badly, requiring surgery.  As she cannot drive, I have been coming with her to her medical appointments.

Today, we were going to the Ottawa hospital to decide if she needs another skin graft.  Usually, by mid-morning, all the hospital parking lots are full.  As one of these was closed for re-paving, the parking situation was much worse than usual.  It took a while, but I did find a spot about 4 blocks from the hospital.

After the appointment (which went well – she is healing faster than expected), we were returning to the car:  she held my purse as I pushed her wheelchair, making jokes about pushing her around…   It would have been a very enjoyable walk/roll, had cold drizzle not began to fall on us a block into out stroll.  I wanted to return her to the hospital and fetch the car myself, but she would have none of it.  I may push my friends around every now and then, but always in the direction they want!

My friend has a very excellent sense of humour.  You know that proverbial line that people don’t cross?  She thinks it is the ‘start’ line!  Put that together with my superior punning skills and even cold rain cannot dampen our spirits.

There we were: I, limping down the street pushing my bff in her wheelchair (both legs in cast-type-thingies), cracking jokes as we are being drenched by freezing drizzle…

As we were crossing the street, we noticed a charming gentleman looking at us:  he had that puzzled expression on his face that I have often noticed in people who are wondering if they should speak to strangers or not…like, as if they think they might know them from somewhere but aren’t sure and can’t make up their minds whether or not to speak their thoughts aloud.

Then he did something very simple yet noble.

He offered to give us his umberella!

This stranger empathized with us and, even though he was going in a direction opposite to ours, he offered to shelter us from the cold rain, simply for the reward of doing something good for other human beings.  (At this point, we were mere meters from our parking spot, so it was a mute point – but he did not know that!)

Random acts of kindness like this restore my faith in the human race.