A Helping Hand

I had to see my doctor yesterday to tend my cold and sore throat.  His office is in the small town of Mt. Washington, Kentucky, a twenty minute drive from my house.  My husband and I thought the roads would be tricky after the ice and snow storm that struck our city two days earlier.  Fortunately the roads were relatively clear and we reached Mt. Washington in 30 minutes.  The streets and parking lots were still ice encrusted though.  On the drive to the doctor’s office we marveled at the beauty of the crystal landscape but were shocked at the devastation to the trees.  Our city has lost hundreds of trees and huge branches were broken from almost every tree we drove past.  It was a treacherous short walk into the doctor’s office.  I had a stroke several years ago that left me unbalanced so I walk with a cane.  With my husband’s and my cane’s help we got into the office okay.  When we left the office, a man sitting in his car asked if I needed help.  I pointed to my husband who was getting out of our car and said, “He will help me”.  The gentleman got our of his car anyway. came and took my free arm then helped me to our car.  I was very grateful for his help because we were walking on extremely slick ice.

Since I was fasting before the visit to my doctor, I was hungry so we decided to stop at the Waffle House for breakfast.  The snow was quite deep in the parking lot.  Cars were getting stuck in the drifts and, needless to say, 2 inches of ice covered the surface.  We got out of the car and started for the restaurant when Bill, my husband, said, “I don’t see how we are going to make it inside, I think we should get back into the car”.  Just then 3 men came running out of the restaurant to help us.  Two of the men grabbed me and one grabbed Bill.  “We’ve got you”, they said,  “Just lean on us”.  Another man held the door open for us.  My husband and I couldn’t thank them enough to show our appreciation.  They were truly lifesavers!  After a nice breakfast, we paid our bill then Bill left to get the car to drive closer to the door.  He then came over to help me across the ice.  Suddenly a young woman’s voice said, “Do you mind if I hold your other arm and help you to your car?”.  I was so grateful for her assistance because I feared that my husband would not be able to keep me upright on that hazardous ice.  She not only helped to get me into our car, she fastened my seat belt before she walked away with our thanks.

Bill and I drove away feeling overwhelmed by all the kindness we had received that day.  My heart was full of love for these lovely, kind people and a sense of awe at their willingness to go the extra mile to help me when they saw the struggle I was having to walk on the ice.  After that experience I know that the world is not really going to pot.  There are still a lot of good people out there who are reaching out with a helping hand.  If that many good people were reaching out in the very small town of Mt. Washington in one day, it boggles my mind to think of how many good souls there are in all the small towns and big cities across this nation and other nations.  We sell ourselves short when we dwell on the evils of this world instead of being thankful for all the goodness that is out there willing to lend a helping hand.  Here is one grateful citizen who was lucky enough to experience that goodness, lots of it, in one day

Today

Today I am in a snow and ice filled world here in Louisville, Ky.  Since I cannot get out to go anywhere I decided to knit and watch television.  It didn’t take me long to turn off the television set and just knit because the commercials became so irritating that I just couldn’t take anymore.  Does anyone other than me feel like screaming after watching 3 minutes of program and 10 minutes of commercials?  I actually timed the length of both and I found out that during a half-hour TV program we get 11 minutes of program and the rest is commercials. Too irritating to watch!