I was on the metro tonight, on my way home from work, when I saw something that touched me. It was just a very random act, one that I may have missed on any other day at any other time. But tonight I saw it, and it really made me think.
The car was overcrowded (nothing out of the ordinary for Montreal's public transit system). There was a very large, football looking guy, leaning against the closed doors. I noticed him because of his size. He was kind of scary, with his baggy clothes and backwards baseball cap. Just rough looking. At one of the stops, even more people piled into the car, and a tall, thin girl stood right in front of him. As the doors closed and everyone braced themselves for the rapid metro take off, the train just jolted forward, throwing everyone who was standing completely off balance. The tall, thin girl teetered, but caught hold of herself. What she never saw, but I did, was the big guy behind her, ready to catch her if she had toppled over.
I saw this "almost" random act of kindness, and I realized that she probably never even saw this guy behind her, didn't take notice of him. She got off a few stops later without ever knowing that someone had almost saved her from a potentially nasty (and embarrassing) fall.
And then the most beautiful thought came to me...
Sometimes, even a total stranger might be there to catch you when you fall.
2 comments:
I do that type of thing quite a lot too. It's a natural reaction to try to stop someone from falling and the fact that the person might not notice that I put my hand out actually makes me a little embarrassed sometimes because maybe someone like you saw me doing it - there I have my arm stretched out but in the end there was no need for it to be 'dangling' out there in mid air.
Just goes to show that you should never judge a book by its cover :)
Did you do anything for St Patrick's Day on Saturday? Is it a big thing in Montreal?
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