Restore my faith in humanity… 1987 hurricane for example

[Arlanymor]

There seem to have been a glut of posts recently about people just not giving a crap about others. It made me think about the 1987 hurricane when my hamlet was cut off for two weeks from civilisation essentially and what we all did to support one another. There was ONE house with power and the people there threw open their doors to provide hot water and hot food - and were repaid a thousand times over by people in the months after in a myriad of ways.

Please restore my faith in humanity by sharing a nice story of an instance where someone helped someone else out just because of inherent decency. ♥️

I love this quote and it's something I tell my children. ♥️

Aw thank you.

I just googled his quotes and only just realised how many wonderful ones he came out with:

“We live in a world in which we need to share responsibility. It's easy to say "It's not my child, not my community, not my world, not my problem." Then there are those who see the need and respond. I consider those people my heroes.”
― Fred Rogers

“If you could only sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to the people you may never even dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person.”
― Fred Rogers

“Anything that’s human is mentionable, and anything that is mentionable can be more manageable. When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary. The people we trust with that important talk can help us know that we are not alone.”
― Fred Rogers

“When I say it's you I like, I'm talking about that part of you that knows that life is far more than anything you can ever see or hear or touch. That deep part of you that allows you to stand for those things without which humankind cannot survive. Love that conquers hate, peace that rises triumphant over war, and justice that proves more powerful than greed.”
― Fred Rogers

What a star!

When my mum died, my parents' neighbours were lovely. They would bring around food, or help my Dad (if me/my siblings were at work) and just spend time with him.

I'll never forget a lovely friend coming over when my DC1 was a newborn. I was on my own (ex had walked) and she and her hubby would come with a cooked meal so we could eat together, have a catch up and then they would watch my DC1 so I could have a nap or a shower.

My parents/family were very much people who would help others. When my parents died, so many people would tell us about the lovely things they did.
Likewise, amongst the people I know, if there is someone who is in a fix, the others will club together to help out. Broken washing machine, then a rota is drawn up so laundry gets done. An injury, illness or death, then things like laundry, cooking, housework, lifts, school runs and childcare are done to try and support.

At work, staff have bought small bottles of toiletries (unused of course), hair bands and things like that, and offered them to patients who don't have these things with them. The hospital-issue stuff isn't great, so things like this can make a real difference to people. Staff will also often buy in some packets of sanitary pads and put them in the staff toilets (or give to patients, rather than offering those giant incontinence pads!) so that people aren't caught short without sanitary protection. Things like charge leads for phones we also lend out, so patients can stay in contact with family/friends.

The kind things that people have done for me over the years, and the kind things I've seen, I will try and then do for others/pay it forward, so to speak. I think it's the small things that can make a big impact on people.

I moved to my village as a single parent with a 17 day old baby. About 2 months later there was heavy snow. At this point I hadn’t really got to know any of my neighbours, but one of them cleared the snow off my drive. He just got his shovel and spent about an hour clearing it for me. I’d been feeling generally sad and vulnerable after splitting with my ex, but I felt very reassured knowing I was surrounded by such random kindness. I’ve been here 20 years now and it’s just that sort of village. People help each other.

Ha! Made me laugh

We were sunbathing next to the sea in Marseille last week and a passing woman asked us if we had a spare hairband (we both have long hair). We didn't, but BF gave her the one he was wearing, so had to wear his own hair down for the rest of the evening.

(Mind you, that's a tendency he has that has to be tempered with a bit of common sense- he had to be told, fairly firmly, that if there's only one seat on the bus he should be the one to sit down, because he's the one with the bad back, and to see him wincing with pain the rest of the day is doing me no favours 🙄)

Re the 1987 hurricane, I still remember our milkman’s comment. Many mature trees had fallen across the main road, and the nearby Royal Park was closed because of dangerous trees.

‘I don’t know’, said our milkman, ‘A little bit of wind and the whole country goes to rack and ruin.’ 😂
He’d turned up regardless.

My absolute biggest one is that when I was on my absolute uppers as a single mum with a new baby and an ancient, failing PC, I was given a brand new laptop by a friend whose sister works for a big electronics firm and gets given ex prototype models. It's the fact that they thought of me. I'll never forget that.

actually "a beautiful day in the neighbourhood" restored my faith in us as a society being able to nurture children. so much to learn and it's effort but we can do it.
@applepipshake

I live on a street full of bungalows with a fairly elderly population. I’m disabled myself and not necessarily much use for running errands, so at the beginning of Covid I put leaflets through everyone’s door with my contact details to get us all in touch to coordinate helping each other. I set up a WhatsApp group for those of us that have it, but a lot don’t so I gave them my landline. In the first week of lockdown one particularly vulnerable lady phoned in quite a state needed help getting hold of a prescription. I asked one of the young and able neighbours who had volunteered to help, which she was happy to do so I put the two of them in touch with each other. I didn’t hear anything else for ages, but when lockdown eased and I started seeing my neighbours again I found out that volunteer neighbour had adopted vulnerable neighbour and had been running all sorts of errands, getting shopping, and sometimes just surprising them with donuts. They had literally never met before Covid. Vulnerable neighbour was really struggling with her mental health at the beginning of lockdown, she’d been in tears on the phone to me. Volunteer neighbour saw what was needed and took it upon herself to just get her through it. She treated a person she’d never met like her own family at moment’s notice. They have over a fifty year age gap and have formed a friendship that is still going strong today. I think volunteer neighbour is secretly super woman. She has a young family of her own and runs her own business. She’s just amazing really.

A while back I was due to have surgery. It wasn’t particularly dangerous and a full recovery was expected, but it was to a sensitive bit of the body, there could be potential adverse effects, and I was nervous about it. A couple of nights before there was a ring at my doorbell and there was the 92-year-old lady from across the road, leaning on her walker. She’d had the same surgery many years previously and had come to assure me that “there’s nothing to it, my dear”. It wasn’t very painful and she’d quickly made a full recovery. She also gave me her phone number and told me that if I needed anything I was to call (she was very doddery and ill herself but she assured me that she could send her cleaner round to help me if she couldn’t). I was very touched and far more importantly, she made me feel so much less anxious about the whole procedure.

I arrived home from hospital to a lovely card from her. She was exactly right, the surgery was fine and I recovered quickly. We stayed in touch until she died a few months later. I don’t think I’ll ever forget her kindness.

I lived in a village on top of a hill and whenever it snowed the farmers would send their tractors round to clear the roads. Then the people who lived nearest the big ‘salt bins’ would come out with their shovels and grit the roads. Otherwise we would have been completely cut off - steep hills on all sides.

I once chased a family with young children through central Berlin, with my own dd in a pushchair, because they'd left a bag with nappies and things on a bus we were on (didn't see it in time to stop them when thy got off). I'd overheard bits of their conversation, figured they were tourists and guessed where they were going. Caught up with them about half an hour later and gave them the bag. I still think fondly back to the look of delighted shock on their faces and feel pleased with my tiny bit of good karma.

This one’s over thirty years ago so maybe not restoring faith today, but I still think about it. I’d gone with a friend to see a band. On the way home we realised we were on the wrong train. It was late, and dark, and we were starting to panic. Mobile phones didn’t exist. We didn’t have much money on us. A middle aged man on the other side of the carriage overheard our conversation and just handed us £30 in cash to get a taxi home. It was worth a lot more back then. We took his address and my dad sent him a cheque for the money. But we could have just not returned it and he wouldn’t have been able to do anything about it. He just trusted a couple of panicked teenagers he’d never met in order to keep us safe.