The Kindness of Strangers

He was broken. Heartbreak, something he’d once scoffed at as phoney, had landed squarely in his chest. He didn’t like the feeling one bit. The goodbye had been a salt-soaked tangle of frantic passion and fumbling farewell. An engagement, a desperate attempt to deny the inevitable parting, now felt like another misstep. And here he was, rambling shambolically through the Boston streets. His traveler’s checks, cashed for an earlier flight home, were gone. He was adrift, nowhere to stay. The dictionary definition of lost. After all the highs this trip had offered, he felt stripped back to the vulnerable nineteen-year-old he still was, his new found freedom a flimsy disguise.

Guilt weighed him down, heavier than his backpack. Guilt for skipping the final trip his grandmother had so lovingly funded, choosing instead those extra days with his love. Guilt over the sharp words exchanged in his last call home. A shaming guilt for not having conjured some radical, brave solution to stay.

Pathetic and hollow he found himself at the bus terminal. The yellowed, polished walls felt like the inside of a stale ashtray. He approached the counter, the fluorescent hum a dull drone. “Is there anywhere I could stay for about thirty dollars?” he asked the person behind the glass.

She looked him over, a flicker of pity softening her gaze. “Wait.” Her Jamaican accent was a warm melody, a sudden bright note in his desolate days. She spoke rapidly in a broad patois into an old-fashioned Kermit green handset, its curly cord like a pig’s tail. Then, with a delighted smile, she pushed the phone towards him. “It’s my mum.”

Her mother’s voice on the other end was instantly kind. Tears welled in his eyes at this unexpected generosity. She offered him a place to stay until his flight. He was speechless, overwhelmed by this pure, unbidden kindness of strangers. “You’re lost, darling,” she said, her voice gentle. “If it was my daughter, your family would do the same.”

(Based on a true story)

©️ de Gruyther 2025