When you are involved in a random act of kindness… anything can happen

I was sitting in a café late on Friday afternoon talking to my beautiful friend Fiona. I was grumpy though, I hadn’t been sleeping very well and the medication I am taking for one of my various ailments, which you can just summarise as ageing, was making me feel nauseous.

For weeks now I’ve been feeling this low grade nausea which is heightened by stress – did I mention that we are about to put our house on the market? There’s some stress that I added to my nausea right there.

Fiona had mentioned that I looked very pale and because she has a medical background I didn’t take this as an insult. She also tried to scare me into looking after my health better but I just gazed at her glumly and sipped my tea.

Soon the conversation turned and I listened eagerly as Fiona stopped telling me that I might die and instead told me about what’s been going on at work.  I love listening to her talk because she’s engaging and funny and I love hearing about other people’s work places which are so different from mine but I was finding it hard to concentrate.

Behind Fiona was sitting an elderly gentleman, I’d put him at around 70. He was well dressed and clearly a little anxious. With him he had 12 red roses in a plastic sleeve. It was obvious he was waiting for someone to meet him.  I couldn’t help noticing that every so often he readjusted his position in a most pronounced way as if trying to take in the scene around him, he checked his watch at regular 30 second intervals.

We continued to talk and I continued to watch Lonely Man (I had christened him by then). I mentioned to Fiona every time he checked his watch which more or less made any other conversation impossible, so often was he looking intently at the time on his wrist.

He ordered a coffee and stood to look around the room.

Fiona and I continued to count his watch checks and create a story around his life.

He rearranged the roses in the plastic sleeves and looked around again.

Eventually he ordered a meal for one.

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Eventually we couldn’t stand it anymore. Both of us far too sensitive to see this man being stood up.

We went to the counter to pay. I was feeling more nauseous and exhausted than before we had sat down.

Then Fiona turned to me and said “should we pay for his meal?’

Even as I write this I can feel the beauty of her love and compassion warm me up. I often read about random acts of kindness and see people doing beautiful things for each other and while it always touches me and speaks to me I am afraid I just don’t think about it when the time is right, I don’t do the kindness for stranger thing as often as I should.

And as we organised with the man behind the counter to pay for Lonely Man’s meal I felt my nausea dissipate. Fiona looked at me and said that I didn’t look so pale anymore. I think she thought it was the tea that had given me colour – but really it was her very big and thoughtful heart that made me feel so alive.

I don’t think Lonely Man was joined by his “date” that night but I am quite sure that when he went to pay his bill he did know that out there someone does care.

Thanks Fi.

Have you ever participated in a random act of kindness? Has someone reached out to you in a random act of kindness?

P.S You should check out Fiona’s Instagram feed here, she is also an awesome photographer.