Kindness In A New Country

In the previous post, Yve the Nurse spoke on how the act of kindness is still well alive in these gloomy times. I might as well share an act of kindness I experienced some months back away from home.

I'm in a new country, Germany to be precise. While I'm still working on improving my ability to communicate in German, I still have a long way to go. Besides this incident happened just a few weeks into the country therefore my comprehension in the language back then was close to non-existent. 

Anyhow, I was on the train heading to school when I received a text message that required my urgent attention. As I remained fixated on replying the message I lost my sense of awareness to realize we had reached my stop. By the time I realized what was happening, the train was moving again. For a brief moment I panicked; as I was still learning how to connect my train rides especially in the event of missing a stop. 

Also, my anxiety heightened for the fact that while some Germans do speak English, you still need to pray that the next person you come across is bilingual. Therefore my worry was - what if I needed to ask someone for assistance? How was I going to string words to communicate my distress?

Well, we arrived at the next stop where I alighted. As I was walking away from the platform a young man rushed past me to enter the train. In his hurry his train ticket fell without him noticing so I quickly picked it up and ran back to the train to hand it over to him. Luckily I was able to draw his attention where he quickly grabbed the ticket before the door automatically closed. Whew! 

Now, back to my reality. I climbed up the stairs to the upper platform to see how best I could figure out my way back. As I was scanning the station to make my next move a young man with a baby strapped in front of him approached me.

He started speaking German where I gently shook my head to indicate that I had no idea what he was saying. Then he switched to English. 

He said: what you did for that young man was so thoughtful of you. 

As it turned out, he'd noticed the effort I'd put into picking up the previous guy's ticket to run back and hand it over to him. 

Right then I thought, wow! Someone actually noticed? 

Then he continued: I see you look confused. Can I be of any help to you? 

Wow! The heavens sure does know how to send angels in time of distress. So I told him my situation and where I was headed by which he gave me directions to get onto the right platform.

What's my take from this experience? Even when you are overwhelmed with your own problems you sure can solve a problem for someone. 

My uncertainty regarding my ability to navigate my way back to my destination did not stop me from acting quickly to alert the previous guy of the fact that he had dropped his ticket. In rising above my own problem, I received help in a different form.

Kindness. Pass it on. 

Corona Feelings by Ann Platinum