In praise of good people

This is the fourth time this has happened: a stranger spontaneously prepaid our Timmy’s order before we got to the drive through window!

I am new to Winnipeg, having only moved here the first of October, yet the citizens of this city repeatedly challenge the idea that city-dwellers are unfriendly. Instead, people smile and speak on the street, hold doors open for each other, yield parking spots, and yes... apparently randomly pay for strangers’ coffee.

I am stunned and humbled by this, and it reminds me how important even the simplest gesture can be to make a difference to someone else, even if you never know it. He will never know it, but this gentleman positively impacted three people with one small act of kindness.

Both of my adopted "daughters" (university students boarding with me), have exams today. They both stayed up very late (one even pulled an all-nighter) studying, and we all got up extra early. I drove them today to give them extra study time in the car, but we were all groggy, quiet and a bit sullen. We pulled through Tim Horton’s on the way to artificially bolster ourselves with caffeine, but the general tone in the car was gloomy and apprehensive. (I’m nail-biting over their exams too.)

Yet, as the server at the window waved away my debit card, explaining that the truck ahead of us had already paid our order, you could physically feel the change in all of us, in the atmosphere, as the realization of his unexpected kindness dawned on us. Suddenly we were awake, filled with excitement, ready for the day and oh-so happy. What an enormous influence one person’s goodness can have on so much and so many.

Thank you, Good Samaritan. You remind me that I have this same potential for impact on every person I come in contact with, known or stranger, every day — and it’s my responsibility, too, to make sure I leave those that I meet better and happier than before I crossed their path. Even if it’s just to smile and say hello, it makes a difference. If I want to life in a positive world, I have to make the effort to make it that way.

— Donna-Lynn Baskin