Kindness on the road can extend to all past Christmas
Be courteous and safe for your sake and the sake of others, Lorraine Sommerfeld writes.
I was in the grocery store recently buying a conveyor belt full of groceries when I happened to glance back at a single Gatorade bottle sitting behind the divider after my haul. I nodded to the young man purchasing it to go ahead of me because that is the sane thing to do.
“Hey, thanks,” he said gratefully. “That’s the fourth time this week someone has done that. I really appreciate it.”
It happened four times because it’s the time of year when people get all warm and fuzzy toward strangers.
Enjoy it because it will wear off by the time the malls open on Boxing Day.
I have spent a year reading headlines and trying to understand how humans can be so hateful toward each other.
How they can drive while impaired and destroy families, race their cars at more than
200 km/h on public roadways, park in handicap spots because they’re lazy, crash into cars and people and take off, go around hurt cyclists lying prone on the ground, run over pedestrians because they refuse to slow down and play cat and mouse at top speed with unsuspecting mice. It doesn’t have to be this way. We don’t need more laws, we have enough. You can’t legislate common sense and kindness, no matter how hard you try.
Yet every year at this time, no matter how religious or secular you might be, most of us prove how much we want kindness. We want respect. We want responsibility. We want to do the right thing.
Back in April, 13 truckers prevented a man from jumping from an overpass in northern Detroit. As he pondered his fate, police closed the highway in both directions. Then, slowly a rig crept past the barricade.
“A second rig joined it. Then another, and another. Onlookers started to film as they formed a sort of bridge beneath the bridge, a safety net of metal to break any fall.” Police later said they’d used truckers before to prevent a suicide, but never had so many volunteers. I guarantee every one of those truckers looked at that man and saw themselves or someone they loved. We all need to believe if we couldn’t be there to save our own, someone else would step up.
I wrote about Montreal man Erick Marciano, who last month sacrificed his Mercedes-benz SUV to block a car before it could plow into a crowd of bystanders. He acted on impulse, as did those truckers.
Our impulses are good, our instincts are true. But we are surrounded by rage.
I’m guilty of it myself. I rail at politicians intent on destroying the planet, at being complicit in protecting their own at the cost of destroying mine. I want the broken and damaged to be helped, like those truckers who spent hours protecting a man they didn’t know.
We can be better to each other every day. We can strip out the politics and the judgment and the fear.
We can choose to see the humanity in each other and respond to that: “Go ahead of me.” “Let me hold that for you.” “I’m sorry your kid is melting down, I remember those years.” “Take the parking spot, I’ll find another.” “I’m unsure of the burden you’re carrying, so I won’t push mine off on you.”
It’s a good time to remind ourselves of the people who are faced with the unthinkable every day: Our first responders, the paramedics, the firefighters, the police and the cleanup crews.
Those who behold the raw effect of things gone terribly wrong, whose decisions can mean life or death.
We get one go-round in this life. We all know the smallest kind gesture or the quietest word of support can change our day. Let’s be better to each other. Always.