As a reminder of just how much good there is out there in the world, we share five stories of a random act of kindness that made a big impact.
Sometimes the best thing we can do is remind ourselves that *Hugh Grant Prime Minister Voice* ‘Love actually IS all around us.’ At a time when everything feels increasingly fraught, it felt important to have a reminder about the simple acts of kindness that humans are capable of doing for each other. In these five stories, you’ll notice that none of these acts were big or expensive or planned out – but they had an impact long after they were done.
If you’ve got a random act of kindness or a thank you letter of your own you’d like to share, please email [email protected] and we’ll compile them!
‘Thank you to… the stranger who gave me the flower’
When I was in high school, around 16/17 years old I received a phone call from a friend who had some devastating news. The overwhelming pain I felt for her was crushing. Being so young still, I had no idea what to do for her, what to say or how to navigate what this meant for her and her world. I remember I was at a bus stop, in my school uniform and when she hung up the call and I numbly just started walking.
I found myself going into the mall nearby and sitting at St Pierre’s sushi, of all places, and I started to cry. This cry was one of those ‘I don’t care who sees me, everyone else has faded into the background’ cries. I truly have no idea how long I was sitting there crying alone for, but I heard someone say “excuse me.”
I looked up, expecting to be asked to move along, or leave or if someone else could have the table. But there was a man standing there looking at me. He was holding one of those bright fake orange flowers, the ones you can get from the dollar store. He held it out to me and said, “It looks like you need this” and then handed it to me and walked away.
Thinking about it now as an adult, I imagine it would’ve been a hard decision for him to make – a random man giving a crying high school girl a flower – but I could tell it came from the right place. And I still have that flower to this day.
Meg Mansell, The Edge Breakfast
‘Thank you to… the stranger who gave me a place to sleep’
When we were uni students, two friends and I used to hitch and camp around the South Island in the summers, with hefty backpacks and slim wallets. We never knew how long it would take to get a ride (we accepted them only from couples or solo women), but we usually had no problem.
So one morning when we went to hitch from Blenheim to Picton – just a 25-minute drive – we never imagined we could miss the ferry sailing that evening. But no one stopped all day! Perhaps we looked like we needed a hairbrush and a shower? We finally got a ride, but arrived at the terminal only in time to see ‘our ferry’ disembarking. Argh!
We would normally find a campground, but it was dark and we weren’t sure how we’d get there, or if it would have room. So we slid into our sleeping bags in a corner of the terminal building, only to be informed by a security guard that no one could sleep there.
A staff member heading home immediately sized up the situation. She said ‘right, girls, you’re coming home with me’. And we did. Sheryl arranged us on a blow-up mattress and couch in her lounge, gave us biscuits, and at 6am she dropped us off to the next sailing. All the while, she showed no trace of annoyance, just kindness. I thanked her at the time, but if you’re reading this, Sheryl, I’ve paid that good deed forward.
Sarah Lang, Capsule writer
‘Thank you to… the stranger who gave me the most important $20 of my life’
I was 17 years old and in the middle of exams (the old kind, before NCEA). I sat an exam in the morning and had about an hour free before my next one started. Just enough time to whip across town in my wee Leyland mini (or the flying red brick as it was affectionately known) to pick up my paycheck from work and put some petrol in my beloved car.
This car really could run on the smell of an oily rag but with the needle below ‘E” it was getting close to the wire. Too close, as it turned out. Halfway between school and work, the red brick was no longer flying but spluttering to the side of the road. I had run out of petrol. I had no cell phone (not that many people did back then), I had no money, no way of getting back to school, no hope for a future when I failed the most important exam in my final year of school because I was stuck on the side of the road in a car that had a Winnie the Pooh sticker on its rear.
But what’s this? A man – nay, angel – in a suit peering into my car as he wrapped up a phone call (he was one of the super cool people who did have a mobile). Asking if I’d run out of petrol, then thrusting $20 into my hand so I could pop down to the petrol station to fill up a container and SAVE MY LIFE!
As he started to walk off, I asked him for his address so I could pay the money back to him. He replied “Don’t worry about it. I hope that if my daughter was in this situation, someone would do the same for her.” And off he strode to make more important business calls and no doubt perform more good deeds.
I filled up my tank (yes, $20 did actually fill my petrol tank back then) and made it to school in plenty of time to sit the exam. I passed that exam, and I will always be grateful to my angel in a suit.
Sarah van der Kley, host of The Breeze Drive.
‘Thank you to… the stranger who sensed my new mother nerves’
Six weeks after our baby was born, I decided that we ‘needed a challenge’ and so booked our first road-trip out of the city. Chalk it up to newborn mania, because actually we didn’t need a challenge, what we needed was… sleep.
But on the drive from Auckland to Rotorua, we stopped at Woodlands Estate in the Waikato and I attempted to do my first out-in-the-world breastfeed of my son. It was late in the day, the café was about to close and I was incredibly nervous and self-conscious. I took my son outside into the winter cold, in an attempt to feed him with no-one seeing.
The lady behind the counter – giving off that perfect hospo blend of brisk capability and warm maternal energy – clocked exactly what I was doing, saw me struggling to keep him warm and came out to ask me if I wanted to feed him inside. She set me up in an armchair by the heater, and left me alone, apart from to bring me a glass of water, because as a new mother you are always the thirstiest little camel.
Eight months later, I can still remember what that glass of water and cosy armchair meant to me. It was a small act of being looked after that made me think that maybe everything was going to be okay – that I was going to be able to be a parent, out in the real world. Woodlands Estate, you’ve made a friend for life!
Emma Clifton, Capsule Co-Founder
‘Thank you to… the strangers who bailed me out of a toddler meltdown.’
My toddler had been perfect as we made our way around the supermarket. High on a false sense of security (what a fool!), I did a proper big shop. The trolley heaving, I headed for the self-service checkout that was empty and began filling my bags. At which point, the toddler of course lost his mind.
He refused to be in the trolley for another second, so I balanced him – a wriggling ball of sadness – on my hip while I scanned items. Of course, it was one of those days when the scanner refused to believe that I’d bagged the items, so the whole process was taking a lifetime.
My toddler was inconsolable. I briefly considered just walking away. But then the older man who works there, came over and wordlessly began scanning and packing my items for me, then loaded my trolley. “I have children and grandchildren,” he said, after I thanked him. “It is a pleasure to help a mother.”
But it got even better. As I pushed the trolley to the carpark – sweating and disheveled – with the toddler now seriously losing his mind, the woman who was parked next to me (with two young teens on their iPads in the back seat), stopped in her tracks as she was preparing to get into the driver’s seat.
As I unlocked the car, she opened my boot door and began lifting my bags in – again, without a word, until I said, “ohmygodthankyou” – she just gave me a wink and a smile and then headed back to her car.
THANK YOU to those two angels at Henderson Countdown. They were two small gestures that meant the world.
Alice O’Connell, Capsule Co-Founder