Paying It Forward

There was a movie that came out several years ago called “Paying It Forward”. It was about an idealistic boy around ten years old in elementary school. His teacher gave the class a project to do that involved doing random acts of kindness for strangers without asking for anything in return, and then reporting back on what happened. This young boy took it seriously and began doing that. Soon, other strangers were helping other strangers because they had been helped, asking them only to “pay it forward' by helping someone else that they did not know. Soon the whole city began to change with people doing random acts of kindness all over. It even made the daily newspaper. In the end this young boy gave his life literally by “paying it forward” by helping a fellow classmate who was being constantly bullied by this gang. The gang leader pulled out a knife and stabbed the boy to death. It happened on school grounds. The teacher saw it and arrived in time to break it up and get help, but the helpful boy died in his arms, saying, “Just paying it forward”. Well I had a real experience this evening.

I was shopping for groceries late in the evening and had finished around 9 p.m. I sat down with my several bags of groceries at a local bus stop. It suddenly occurred to me that maybe the last bus had gone by because of it being a holiday and they were on a Sunday schedule, which means the buses do not run as late as they do during a regular weekday schedule. I had forgotten this when I left my place. I called my son on my cell phone and had him check the bus schedule. Sure enough, I had missed the last bus by a half hour. There was another man also waiting at the bus stop. He looked to be a business man in his dark suit and white dress shirt. I went over and told him that the last bus had already gone by and why. I was thinking about if I even had enough money to take a cab home, but never said anything to this guy. The man asked where I was going, and I told him. Turned out it was about half the distance of where he was headed further on, so he asked if I wanted to split a cab fare with him. I said sure, but that I need to go to an ATM to get some cash because I didn't have any on me. He had to do the same, so we agreed to meet back at the bus stop in a couple of minutes. He volunteered to call the cab with his cell phone, so I agreed and we split. Turned out we both used the same bank and there was an ATM right behind us that we both used. The cab arrived about five minutes later. He offered to let me sit in the back of the cab with all my bags and he take the front seat beside the driver. I said that that was ok with me. Well, the driver had stuff piled in the seat beside him, so that was out, but I just stacked my 3 bags around me and left the side open for the other guy. We all managed to fit in the back seat.

My stop was first. I had told the driver an intersection a couple of blocks away from my place so as to keep us going in a straight line and not to inconvenience the gentleman sharing the fare with me. The driver let me out at the corner gas station. I told them here was fine that I could walk the couple of blocks to my home from there. They both graciously offered to take me all the way, but I said I was fine, that I did not wish to inconvenience the other passenger. I asked how much I owed the driver and had my wallet out to pay, when the businessman said that it was only a couple of dollars and that he would take care of it. He routinely took the cab this distance when he got off work late at night to his home sometimes about another mile away, so he was familiar with the cost. I graciously thanked him, utterly astounded, and he said, “Just pay it forward. Just help somebody else.” I laughed in joyous understanding and said that I would. I left the cab in a daze and started my trek home with grocery bags in hand.

God bless you, kind stranger.