The Kindness of Strangers

I did it again.  I left my purse in a shopping cart in a parking lot and drove away, not realizing my mistake until I get home.  After frantically searching my car and mentally running through every possible reason why it wasn’t sitting in its usual spot, I concluded that I had (yet again) left it behind.

Leaving my frozen items on the counter at the mercy of the sweltering kitchen, I rushed back to Safeway at Uptown.  At times like these my mind runs through all the items in my purse and I realize the value, or lack of, of each thing.  I don’t routinely keep large amounts of cash in my purse, perhaps because of this very reason.  Bank cards can be cancelled and replaced along with the miscellaneous lip balm, mints, sheets of stamps with one lonely stamp left, and hair tie thingies that tend to multiply mysteriously in my purse.

Instead, it’s the one or two irreplaceable things like old photos that haunt me, along with the hassle of contacting banks.  Not my idea of a good time.

But once again, some honorable Gig Harborite has found my wayward purse and turned it in, completely intact.  My faith in humankind is restored.  Along with my resolve to quit testing this faith by keeping better track of my belongings.

I think most people are honest and kind.  I have had far more encounters with people who were helpful and generous than not. 

Like the time I found myself with a flat tire in rush hour traffic on I-5.  While I am perfectly capable of changing a tire, I was so grateful for the two kind motorists who stopped to help me complete the job quickly.  They rushed off with only a meager “thank you” from me.

Or the toll booth operator in Hood River who let me cross the bridge when I realized I had absolutely no money and no bank account (I was a teenager) to withdraw the 50 cents needed to cross the bridge.  It saved me an additional hour of driving to get to a bridge with no toll and she was very gracious about my embarrassing lack of any spare change, for once, in the bottom of my purse.

So while the news is often filled with stories of the minority of people who lie, cheat, steal, and hurt others, I am buoyed by this reminder that not everyone is like that.  I enjoy stories that celebrate the kindness of the human spirit, like the recent boaters who assisted a struggling deer to shore who was trying to swim the Narrows. 

People like that, and their stories that are shared on sites like Patch, are the reason why I can tell my children that while bad people are out there, there are far more heroes among us.  We just have to look for them.