Feeling So Sick Walking Was Impossible Until a Fellow Passenger Essentially Lifted Me to a Restroom.
At the age of my late teens, my regular journey to work meant taking an express bus. The vehicle was always jammed and was consistently completely full by the time I stepped aboard.
During a certain commute, I started experiencing terribly ill while the vehicle swayed around each corner. I repeatedly told myself to hold on another few kilometres until the bus arrived at my destination, so I could then rush hurriedly toward the most convenient washroom to throw up.
The bus was approaching the road leading to my stop and I realised I wasn’t going to make it. In an instant, it seemed a fog descended upon me. My vision turned hazy and muffled; as if someone cut the sound. I said to myself, “I am about to pass out”.
Luckily I was toward the front inside the vehicle, so I managed several steps forward and told the operator to open the doors, informing him that I was about to be sick. He promptly opened the bus doors and I hurriedly stepped onto the sidewalk.
My intention was to avoid being sick in view of six lanes of traffic, so I gathered myself and endeavored to stumble toward the green space opposite the street, thinking I could I could at least discreetly hide near some foliage to be sick. However I likely blacked out. I could feel my body but I couldn’t walk or see clearly, so I started crawling towards the grassy area.
“Everything alright, love?”
Right then, I got scooped up. There was someone holding me and heard a man say, “Everything alright, love?” I told this mysterious stranger that I had to to be sick. Therefore, he almost carried me down into an adjacent building and guided me inside the women’s restroom. He wanted to know whether I required him to wait for me but I refused.
After a short while, I had recovered to the point of sitting on the restroom floor and from the other side of the door came his voice asking, “Do you need anything, love? Can I get you something?” I wasn’t able to get up right away but did manage to say thank you and after a few more minutes recovered the use of my legs. I returned home and spent several days getting over what turned out to be a nasty tummy bug.
I did not see that man’s face – merely his legs and a large container for tools he was carrying – but he helped me, during a time when I was at my most vulnerable.
Frequently, society can make you guarded, hostile, and combative. His act was the type of kindness that reverses that protective shell. He served as evidence that our default setting leans toward compassion, a quality I adore about my fellow humans.
