Strangers who's lives have touched yours, do you wonder where they are now?

[BloodyAdultDC]

I witnessed a proposal late on Valentine's Day a few years back, in Paternoster Square near St Paul's - hardly anyone around, I often think of them and how their lives have panned out. I was a mumsnet wedding witness a few years back, never heard from the bride or groom since, wonder how telling their family went. Also the midwife who supported me overnight when I finally sussed bf, I wonder if she really knew what an impact she had on us both. Many many others too.

Does anyone ever think about those kinds sliding door moments, and wonder how they're doing now?

I had a bad allergic reaction on a plane and luckily a doctor was on the plane (on her holidays). I was very ill and she cared for me for the rest of the flight and went beyond what I would have expected from a stranger. She wrote her details on a piece of paper the airline gave my husband but it was a medical form and the hospital kept it when we went there straight after the flight landed and in the chaos I didn't keep her details. It was over 15 years ago and I still wonder about her.

Loads really but the most recent was just before Christmas. A woman was trying on a coat in Asda and asked me how it fitted. I said it looked fine. She told me she was buying it for the funeral of her son in law who had been diagnosed with cancer and had died within 6 weeks. She was so sad. She told me when the funeral was and I thought of her all that day

I remember a baby boy just a few months old when I was a student nurse. He was blind, which had occurred as a result of a non accidental head injury. His parents were banned from the ward.
He was called Sam and would be early 30's now. I often wonder what his future held.

Also a young German woman DH pulled unconscious from the sea in Rhodes four years ago. She recovered and we nodded to each other around the hotel complex thereafter. I wonder how many times my DH has fared in her holiday stories.

When I was buying my wedding dress (many many years ago). I was in the wedding dress shop trying on dresses, the was another woman there trying on dresses as well (the shop had two rooms).

She only had her mum with her, the woman looking at the dress's was very overweight, she chose her dress and the shop assistant was explaining that the biggest size they could order was size 24 but that would be too small for her.

The woman kept saying don't worry I will loose the weight, I will get into it. Her mother was being horrible and kept saying "no chance Janet you may as well set fire to your money" I've often thought about her and hoped she got into her dress. She looked so sad.

I was flying back from Spain aged 15 on my own, it was the second time I'd ever been on a plane. I noticed a young couple in the airport lounge, he was in a wheelchair with his leg in plaster. I asked if they would make sure I was on the plane as I was terrified I'd get on the wrong one. They completely befriended me, and because they were boarding and disembarking the plane first with the wheelchair, they told the air stewards I was the ladies sister and had to board and exit with them, and had to sit near them. They were amazing! I landed and found my parents and thanked them - I wish I'd gotten their names to say a proper thank you, but wherever they are, they were amazing for this and I hope their lives turned out happy

@Kool4kats - just heartbreaking.

I once found myself flying with a 1 and 4 yo via Chicago, JFK, and Heathrow to Dublin. I am eternally grateful to the Aer Lingus stewards who took pity on me and watched the LOs while I went to the loo. Also to the Heathrow ground staff person who put me and my luggage trolley and the baby in the buggy into a lift that was out of bounds to passengers so we didn't have to walk two miles out of our way to get basically directly downstairs.

I've remembered an act of kindness to me. I had an awful cold and nasty (female) boss and I was sat at the train station crying on the way home. This lady came up and sat with me and said some really kind things and that reminder that there were kind people out there helped me start to realise that I needed to move on from the job, despite how hard I had worked to get it. I'd love to tell that lady how much I remember her kindness at a very hard time.

And an elderly gentleman who saw me vomiting in a bin when I was struggling to juggle hyperemesis and an energetic preschooler and said such lovely kind things. What he couldn't have known was that I had an abusive husband at home who was being very cruel about my sickness, and this strangers kindness meant so much.

Little acts that make the world a better place for someone

@Blueeyedmale you did right. No judge in the land would chastise you for doing that. That company needs to check itself! My husband and another bloke caught a woman by her arm as she was leaping off a bridge to her death a few months ago. DH was a bit shook up afterwards. Wonder how she is?

The lovely lady at the London tube station that got me and my daughter (8) on the right tube. I had taken my daughter to see frozen (down from Scotland) navigated all the trains and tubes to get to our hotel then we went to see frozen the musical at night. When we got back to the tube station I had a total mind blank. A lovely lady stopped and asked if I was ok, I told her where I needed to be and she directed me. To her it’s probably an everyday occurrence but to me it stopped a panic attack.. and the lovely lady on the flight home from Egypt who asked me if I needed help when I had a baby screaming for a bottle. And she made my babies bottle for me before my husband had managed to even get on the plane.

My mum suffered through terrible depression and when I was at uni she called me to say “goodbye” after she had taken an overdose and cut off the phone. I’d called an ambulance and then rushed to try and make it home in time to try and get my younger sisters from school (my dad was working abroad and uncontactable) but I ran out of money at Paddington and broke down in tears when my card was declined at the ticket booth. The kind man behind me paid for my ticket home… no questions asked and gave me a dairy milk, which he’d presumably bought for his own journey saying I looked like I needed the sugar.
I think of him every time I go through Paddington on my way home to see my parents, my mum now being well and thriving over a decade later ❤️.

My daughter was in an oxygen tent aged 18 months and put in an induced coma whilst battling an illness and I was staying at the hospital night & day alone as my dh had our other children .
On new years eve , at gone midnight a male Dr who had been out to a ball turned up in a dinner jacket to see how she was . I remember the two of us sat at her bedside in a single room just chatting for about 30 minutes . I hope he made it to the top of his profession.

Your dh and the other man were absolutely amazing and should be proud of themselves they saved that ladies life.i imagine for something like that she might of got sectioned for such a serious suicide attempt.

We definitely have a mental health crisis in this country and it's becoming more common especially working on the railway over the last few years it's people of all ages men,women and children I think sadly due to the state of our mental health care it will get worse before it gets better.

I often think about the other babies that were in NICU at the same time as my DD. Fortunately she was born at term and only there for five days but there were some really tiny and sick babies. I hope they all pulled through.

some people on my uni course i wondered about, one got married and had a child, another couple split from their uni couple and seems got together with a close friend in their friendship group, another settled and family, its been a mix with some of them

I had anorexia and bulimia for 15 years.

When I was 19 I had just moved into supported accommodation for women only. We had our own bedsits and a support worker each. I was very unwell and in and out of hospital.

I would go shopping every day for as much food as I could afford so I could binge/purge on it throughout the night. One day I had no money to get the bus home as I'd spent all my money on food. I had at least 5 full big Iceland bags and since I hadn't the money to get the bus, I decided to walk the 20-minute walk home with 3 bags in one hand and 2 in the other. I was emaciated at the time and halfway home I was seriously struggling.
A man was walking the opposite way and he stopped to ask if I was OK. I said I was fine and that I was just walking home, but on reflection, I probably didn't look like I was. Still, he didn't say anything about it, just offered to carry my bags for me. He didn't try to persuade me or anything and perhaps because of that and because he was so kind and so genuine, I trusted him and took a chance.
He walked with me the 10 minutes with all 5 bags and took them up the 2 flights of outdoor stairs to my door.
He dropped them on the floor and said he hoped I was alright and just left.

I often think of him now, especially as I'm recovered. I have real trouble trusting men after an assault as a teenager but this stranger really helped me, just out of the goodness of his heart and honestly if he hadn't I probably would have collapsed.

I hope he is happy. I hope he knows that he restored some faith in men for me.

My DF was on life support in an intensive care unit, he went from being absolutely fine and normal to fighting for his life within a few hours - all Family I had reached out to were en route but hours from the Hospital. I sat outside to make some calls but couldn't get the words out, I was alone and bawling my eyes out. A lady approached Me, gave me a handful of Tissues and a Hug then walked off. She never said a word and neither did I - but it was just what I needed, to be held for a few seconds.
(DF miraculously survived and is fighting fit!)

I think about some people I went to college with who I've never seen again . Can't find them on Facebook. I often wonder how things turned out for them . Some people just move on and never look back .

Mine was a lovely woman I met on a train. I was 21, going on a week long course with work in Manchester. This was in the 1980s. I had gone on one of these before a few months earlier and hated it. I was shy, doing a "man's job in a man's world" and I had no role model at all.
In the course of 3 hours she gave me a crash course in confidence, including " always answer the first question you know the answer to". How to act in a group of people "ask them about themselves, they will find it fascinating." She told me to spend the week pretending I was not shy. To just act as a confident version of myself. She was a college teacher of some kind.
All I can say is that she really changed my life. And I have paid it forward to a whole range of young women since.

The HCA who was there when I gave birth to my daughter. We just bonded instantly. I was inconsolable and uncooperative when she left the room so the midwives had to call her back! It was her that got me through a very fast and painful labour.

I was a police officer, still in probation. I was standing at 2 in the morning in a snow storm guarding a crime scene. Was way past my finish time and I was frozen to the bone, thinking about just quitting. A taxi went past, did a u turn and came back. The driver handed me a chocolate bar. Said the hot drink machine at the 24 hour garage was broken so he had got me that instead. I think I cried.

This is a really lovely story! I know it's just about a bag, but it's the bonding with someone who doesn't even speak the same language, through a funny shared gesture. It made me smile!

I used to work in mental health, largely suicide intervention, often negotiating with people literally on the edge. I supported hundreds of people during that time and one or two stories have stuck and I occasionally wonder what happened to them after I'd done my bit. To my limited knowledge, of all those people only two that I'm aware of ever went on to take their own life. I sometimes wonder if the people who survived ever think back to the conversation we had when they were at their lowest.

I have an autistic child who is usually completely delightful but occasionally things go tits up, usually when something unexpected happens and its one more thing than he can cope with. The little gestures from others are huge. The woman who opened an extra check out in tesco just to get us through so we didn't have to wait. The man in the car park who asked if there was anything he could do when the car wouldn't start an a huge meltdown ensued. The knowing smiles, the hand on a shoulder, the passing remarks "you're doing a great job". All guaranteed to make me burst into tears in the moment, but very much appreciated in a moment that feels incredibly lonely 💙

Yup. About 20 years ago my brother had his first epileptic fit. My parents pulled over and dragged him out the car. He’d stopped breathing. A lorry driver pulled over ans ran over to my parents and said he was fitting, got him in the recovery position and reassured my parents he would take a breath. That he had first aid training as he was also a bouncer. My brother did take a breath after 2 long minutes, but when the ambulance came, my parents never got to thank him, or get any of his information

so many replies I could give to this wonderful thread.

The young girl I met on a long train journey back from London to Aberdeenshire. She was only 13 and on her own. She told me she was staying with her grandparents as she'd been 'interfered' with by a neighbour. I sat and held her hand and we played noughts and crosses most of the journey. I'd loved to know how this lass is.

The lady I met in hospital who had me laughing so hard when I really didn't feel like it....

A gorgeous man I locked eyes with on the bus in Islington...he was just stunning and we looked, and smiled and there was that strange instant connection. I was engaged at the time..... we kept staring at each other when he got off the bus and it drove away..... kept me warm and fuzzy all day....and even 30 years later !!!!

The lovely older couple that helped me outside IKEA over ten years ago. Dd was a few weeks old and ds was 6, I'd gone to get something from IKEA on my own with the two of them while dh was at work. Dd needed feeding so I sat on a bench in the outdoor play area watching ds on the slide while I fed dd, finished feeding her, winded her and she projectile vomited the entire feed over herself, me, the bench and the floor. Ds, who is autistic, came running over and started panicking and was on the verge of a meltdown and this couple came over, helped me get wipes and clothes out of my bag for dd, chatted to ds and then held dd while I cleaned myself up as best as I could. A small thing really but it made a difference to my day.