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Original poster

Acts of kindness. Come share your experiences please to cheer me up.

87 replies

dontevenblink · 17/08/2016 01:06

So it's pretty crap here at the moment. The small town I live in (not in UK) has had its entire water supply infected with campylobacter(sp) and there are thousands here who are very ill. DH has been ill since Thursday and has lost 4kg, dc4 who is 23 months was up screaming most of last night as her tummy hurt, the others have temperatures. I have a fairly mild case luckily but still not good... Schools and kindys are shut, there were 360 away from school on Monday

BUT in amongst this there have been some lovely moments of kindness. Yesterday we had a knock on the door and was a local cafe delivering us food for dinner for free as one of DHs colleagues had nominated us knowing we have 4 young dc and no family here. I cried! They delivered food to over 200 families out of their own pocket. And just now we had another knock on the door and was a company bringing probiotic juice drinks round the neighbourhood A local store owner has paid for a water tanker out of his own pocket so locals could have free clean water as he saw so many people trying to buy water as the council didn't provide it quick enough. The local young orchards group is giving out free bags of apples later. The local sikh community is handing out bottles of water in the village centre. Its times like this you really see how amazing people can be.

Has anyone else got any tales of acts of kindness to cheer me up more?

OP posts:

MrsMargeSimpson · 18/08/2016 00:55

A few years ago now I knew of someone who, very suddenly and unexpectedly, lost her husband. She was a young mother and they didn't have any cover such as life insurance. Friends of hers clubbed together to arrange a fundraiser - several of them gave up literally days of their own time to run it, companies and businesses donated products and the like for it. In the end they raised over ten thousand pounds for that family. It was truly amazing to see and every one of the organisers deserved a medal, especially the ones who absolutely refused to 'take any glory' despite a fair bit of pressure to.

Lonnysera · 18/08/2016 01:01

I'm chopping onions. Not crying. Nope.

Dontlaugh · 18/08/2016 01:22

Such amazing stories!
Mine was I had brought ds age 1, to his usual checkup, long term condition. Tubes, heartache, the lot.
We'd finished and I stood at hospital car park machine to pay our parking. A couple came behind me and I offered to move as I was faffing with change etc. Wife instructed husband to pay my parking, I said no way! They very calmly and kindly didn't listen to me and actually paid the money into the machine.
I'll never forget that. I wasn't stressed that day nor upset, ds was being charming, life was good. There was no specific reason for them to be so kind but that made it even better!
I've paid it forward so many times cos I know how much it means.

Original poster

dontevenblink · 18/08/2016 01:53

Definitely a lot of onions being chopped here lonnysera

And to delores I missed the end of your post earlier, sorry.

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Original poster

dontevenblink · 18/08/2016 01:54

This is one of my favourite acts of kindness from the last day here

Acts of kindness. Come share your experiences please to cheer me up.

OP posts:

StillMedusa · 18/08/2016 02:16

I had a small moment last week.
I'm dental phobic.. severely so.. and was waiting for my check up. Sitting waiting, I was obviously anxious and a lady next to me started chatting to me.. she was the same and had just undergone lot of treatment.
This total stranger offered to come in with me and hold my hand. She talked me down from my state of terror, stayed with me and enabled me to get in the dentist's chair.
Such a small, daft thing that totally changed my day.

ridingaroundonmytrunki · 18/08/2016 07:47

Mine would be the group of teenage lads who lifted my wheelchair using child off the train for me when the train company couldn't be bothered forgot to get the ramps out for me.
Considering the fact that child plus chair weighs close to 80kg I was eternally grateful to them

So if you were one of the people on the 8.03 who helped, thank you so much

Original poster

dontevenblink · 18/08/2016 09:32

That's such a nice thing riding, I have come across so many helpful teenagers (and taught a few) I often feel they get a bad rap.

still I am incredibly dental phobic too and that would have meant so so much to me, what an amazing thing for that person to do!

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Original poster

dontevenblink · 18/08/2016 09:36

Latest kindness here is tomorrow 21,500 cans of chicken soup (the classic sickness remedy haha) are being handed out in our town centre from a big local company. That's about two for every person here!

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MNHQ

KatherineMumsnet · 18/08/2016 12:18

We're going to move this lovely thread over to Classics, folks.

Rainbowshine · 18/08/2016 13:11

Yey to being moved to classics, but what about our tissue emoji?! Pretty please KatherineMumsnet

Original poster

dontevenblink · 18/08/2016 16:53

Just woke up to feed dd2 and find we've been moved to classics! Wow, thank you Katherinemumsnet! But yes, as rainbow said, a tissue emoji would be very useful

OP posts:

Original poster

dontevenblink · 18/08/2016 16:56

It's great to know pp's lovely stories will stay for others to read

OP posts:

BoaConstrictor · 18/08/2016 16:58

How are you getting on, OP? How is your DH feeling? And your DC? Have you escaped any symptoms so far?

LikeIGiveAFrock · 18/08/2016 16:58

This thread deserves it OP

Original poster

dontevenblink · 18/08/2016 17:09

We're ok thanks boa. DH has finally managed to go back to work although is still feeling a bit delicate. Eldest 3 dc are fine, they had temps and tiredness but nothing more luckily. Youngest dc has been quite bad and isn't eating much but was much perkier yesterday so is on the mend. I've been lucky and escaped the worst but I'd had a headache and a cramping stomach since Fri night and it's amazing how tired it makes you! I'm feeling much better now though. We're going to head into the village on Saturday hopefully and say thank you to the cafe who sent us food and give them some patronage, it's been very quiet for them with so many ill.

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Original poster

dontevenblink · 18/08/2016 17:10

frock

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lemonzest123 · 18/08/2016 17:22

Mind's little but made a huge impact on me. A new girl started a work and she was so kind and friendly that I found myself opening up to her and telling her about my Mum who is dying. I explained I go home every weekend to help care for her and that I bring her sunflowers because they're so bright and happy. Next day I get into work and this person I hardly know has left a huge bunch of sunflower on my desk and some posh chocs. I nearly cried! And I was able to take them home to my Mum at the end of the week.

Goingtobeawesome · 18/08/2016 17:23

FFS stop making me cry.

I had a lady give me £8 for a train ticket when I ran away from a job.

Another lady give me a tissue and ask if I was okay when I was crying on the train. Over a twat .

HelloCanYouHearMe · 19/08/2016 18:17

My DS Dr has just taken a call from me despite him having finished for the day at 5.... the chemist stayed open for me to collect his prescription and the lovely pharmacist has given me a tube of cream for DS for free as id literally ran down to the chemist and had forgotten my purse.

I'll be going back in tomorrow with the cash...

Masketti · 20/08/2016 19:23

Hope you and your family start feeling better soon OP.

Mine is an inclement weather story. I think it brings out the best of British.

I stupidly drove through a too large puddle because I was a mile from home and had been going round and round for ages looking for a way through the flooding. The car conked out and I started pushing it down the road. I turned a corner and a few blokes leaving a pub see me and rush over to help push it into the pub car park which was on a steep incline (incidently I think this is what saved my car from being written off as it allowed any water to drain out. And I'd never have been able to push it up there myself)

I thank them and start out for home in work clothes and thin summer jacket. I'm pretty soaked and wet from the knee down from the puddle and a lady in a 4x4 stops to offer me a lift. I decline as I'm soaked and don't want to mess up her car. She insists as I am still a mile from any houses and she is heading to my village to see how her elderly mum in. She takes me as far as the road will allow and I wade the rest of the way home. Would have been miserable without those RAOK.

I try and pay it forward even though my DH calls me an interfering busy body because it's nice to be nice especially when someone is nice to you. I paid some money towards a chap's petrol who helped me get the petrol cap off the car I was driving. Everyone else just ignored my struggles but he got out of his car and helped.

Original poster

dontevenblink · 22/08/2016 07:51

I've just read the thread all the way through from the beginning and cried (again)! There truly are some beautiful heartwarming stories on here, so glad I started this and that now we get to keep them too

So the dc have gone back to school and kindy today so things have started to get back to normal, although no drinkable water yet and no sign of an end to that yet. We had a lovely weekend though trying to get some normality back. It was lovely to see the cafe that gave away all that food was packed full of people, many of them, like us, saying thank you.

OP posts:

Fiderer · 22/08/2016 08:06

I was flying back to ForrinLand after Christmas when I got hit by a horrid vomiting bug on the plane. We then got diverted to another airport as ours was snowed in.

Waiting for the luggage to come through I was shaking, still throwing up in bags the airline had given me and had 3 children, oldest was 8. A woman came over and said she'd send her husband to the luggage belt for us with my son to find our bags.

She stayed with me, chatted brightly to my daughter and younger son to keep them distracted, played games with them and gave me dampened paper towels to clean up and feel better.

Wish I'd got her address so I could have thanked her. I was near to passing out at one point. Then there was a rush for buses to the original airport and I lost sight of her.

TwoLeftSocks · 22/08/2016 14:59

I had to go to the post office to renew the photo on my drivers licence a couple of years ago. We're been in the city we're still in for a couple of years but the friends I had made through school were just starting to clique together and I was feeling very lonely.

The lady at the post office was the first person I'd spoken to that day other than DH and the DCs and when she noticed the dates on the forms, she wished me such a warm happy birthday with a really big, genuine smile. Absolutely lifted me up.

Bluebell20 · 06/09/2016 21:32

My first year at uni, I was dumped by my boyfriend and so upset I couldn't sleep all night. Called a taxi first thing in the morning to take me from halls to the train station to catch the first possible train home to my mum. It was a good twenty minute taxi ride and I had to get the driver to stop on the way so I could take out cash for the taxi fare and the train ticket - which was about £80 because home was a long way away and I had obviously not booked in advance.

Got chatting to the friendly driver on the way, and explained that I was haring across town at 6am looking like a hot mess because I was having boy troubles and wanted to go home to my mum for the weekend.

When we got to the station he totally refused to take any money off me. It was more than twelve years ago and I still remember him saying, "You didn't expect to have to pay for a train fare this weekend - let me do this for you."

It was so, so sweet and kind and unnecessary, and I will never forget it! I hope that if he has children, someone has been similarly lovely to them at some point!

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