By Anne Hill
Perth, Western Australia
Many years ago, I became ill at school. I suppose someone must have asked me if I was OK to get home by myself, and I must have said that I was. I wasn’t. My head ached fiercely, I wasn’t thinking very well, and I boarded the wrong bus. I still recall the feeling of panic when I realized we were going the wrong way. I got out at the next stop, walked back to the street where my bus usually turned off, and started walking.
I was only nine years old, I was sick, it was a blazing hot day, and I soon found myself in unfamiliar territory. I tried to retrace my steps, but nothing looked familiar. Finally, I saw a little corner store and went in to ask for a drink of water and directions. The storekeeper was talking to a chocolate salesman, but confronted with a clearly distressed small girl in school uniform in the middle of the day, he asked me kindly what was wrong. In the face of such unexpected sympathy, I lost what little self-control I still had and sobbed out my story.
In those days, we didn’t have a telephone at home, so there was no way to contact my mother. The chocolate company salesman offered to take me home. I remember my mother’s expression of horrified confusion when she answered the door and saw me with a strange man who had clearly driven me home in his car. He explained how we’d met, and we both thanked him gratefully before he left. Inside, I clung to my mother in relief and told her my story. With the benefit of my own experience as a mother, I understand why my mother was furious with the school. At the time, though, I begged her not to talk to my teacher because I thought it was all my fault.
When I was calmer and feeling better, Mum said I should have asked the storekeeper to ring our neighbor (I hadn’t even thought of that), and she asked me what I was thinking of to get a lift with a stranger. “But Mum, he’s the Cadbury man,” I said in surprise. Not trusting a man who sold chocolates made as much sense to me as not trusting Santa Claus! People who sell chocolates couldn’t be the sort of bad people she had warned me about. As far as I was concerned, he was a hero who had rescued me in my hour of need.
Mum helped me write a thank you letter to the company, although we didn’t know the rep’s name. We also tried to thank the storekeeper, but I must have been well and truly lost. We drove through the neighborhood streets but never found the store. I can only hope that in the unthinkable event that my own son is ever in such a situation, he will meet someone equally generous and concerned.
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I had a somewhat similar experience when I was about Anne’s age. I was walking home from elementary school (in Campbell River, B.C.) in a storm with torrential rain. When I came to a wide ditch that usually had a trickle of water or less in it, it was full of fast-moving water. I was afraid to cross, not knowing exactly how deep it was, but knowing it was over my rubber boots. As I stood there crying and not knowing what to do, a man stopped his car and carried me across the ditch. Then he drove me home. I’ve never forgotten his kindness.
Linda you should send Leo your full story! We would love to hear (read) it.
I m thinking that that shop , the shop owner and the Cadbury man were all angels. A setup from the divine for you that’s why you couldn’t find the shop. I want to make the point that man in himself has no good to do to another without motives. It’s God working through us that’s the source and force of all the good we see.