Day 10 -- Random Opportunity for Caring & Kindness (ROCK)

While walking the dog this morning, I met a woman who was first walking one direction then abruptly turned and walked in the opposite direction.  This act of confusion caught my attention and then I noticed she was carrying a plastic Fareway bag w/ a cookie sheet, a bottle of Mt Dew, some yogurt, and what looked to be the remnants of a HyVee deli bag of chicken.  As I got closer I noticed she was crying and clearly distraught.  She spoke first, "Does this town have a taxi service?"  "Pardon me?" I responded, uncertain if she was addressing me even though I knew we were the only two people on the street.  "Does this town have a taxi service?" she repeated.  "No. Where do you need to go?"  After learning that her destination was a couple of miles away and the skies threatened rain, I told her that I'd drive her there if she wanted to walk back to my house to get my car.  Over the next seven blocks, I learned that the woman she was living with had kicked her out, and that she suffered from chronic pain and migraines.  I used my best empathic listening skills and just let her talk.  (I must point out here that I'm not completely altruistic since I used this example in class w/ my students since we just happened to be talking about empathic listening today.)  I gave her what little money I had in my wallet and told her that if it hadn't been for a kind woman at a petrol station in Grindley Brook, Staffordshire, England, last summer, my brother and I would still be standing there.  Relying on the kindness of strangers has to work both ways, whether you're the native or the stranger.

The caring of friends also goes a long way too.  Tonight at my daughter's volleyball game, I told a woman about my Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma (NHL) diagnosis.  She said that's what her mother had.  Her mother's been gone now eight years.  I'm used to the fact that when you tell people about a disease or illness, someone inevitably knows someone else w/ that same disease or illness.  When I had a brain aneurysm seven years ago, every other person I talked to knew someone who died from a brain aneurysm.  I must've looked shocked when this woman told me her mother died six-and-a-half years after her NHL diagnosis b/c she went on to tell me about the three different clinical trials that her mother had been adamant to participate in.  The last of the trials was w/ Rituxin, which basically removed all the cancer from her body and would've put her into a more permanent remission if her kidneys hadn't failed.  Her last medicine is the first medicine I'm trying nine years later.  This woman that I never knew cared enough to be part of a study that has come to help me.  Thanks to the kindness of a stranger, I have a better chance of beating NHL or at least surviving longer.

Two or three years ago I wanted to start an organization known as ROCK (Random Opportunities for Caring and Kindness) where average people see someone in need and help that person meet that need.  I failed miserably w/ my first attempt when I stopped at a house and offered to paint their playhouse in the backyard.  The wife hadn't discussed it w/ her husband, and when I returned w/ paint and brushes, he gruffly told me to leave.  I pushed too hard, too aggressively.  Caring and kindness can't be forced on people, but today reminded me that random opportunities do arise for us to make a difference in the lives of others.