When was the last time someone did something for you that touched your heart?

Several months ago I left something at school. I was a bit tired at that time that I completely forgot about it. When I finally remembered and got back, it had gone. I thought I had lost it forever.

Yesterday while I was browsing Facebook I saw a status asking about the owner of something. What the status described matched my lost thing completely. The status was written more than threee months ago, but I still followed its instruction and dialed the number it mentioned. The boy who wrote the status immediately understood what I was talking about and promised to bring it back to me. And now I had my thing back! I still don’t know how he managed to keep my thing for so long…

My neighbor cut my grass. I’ve been ill and unable to get out to do it. I have to admit it’s sometimes a bitter pill to swallow. He is older and actually in worse health than I. But I have chicken pox (and I am no child). I prefer to be the one cutting other people’s grass. Accepting grace is hard for me.

I was trying to answer this, and I realized when does it not happen? It happens all the time to me. But maybe I’m just grateful for the little things in life. And it’s been constantly in the last few weeks.

At least twice in the last three weeks for me.

Any smile by a stranger, especially a young child always touches me.

Thank you people. I’m glad you’ve all had these positive experiences. Not that I don’t have such things happen. I don’t want to say what my ‘thing’ was but it was more the way it was responded to that took me aback a little.

Just today, a friend sent me a card with some things in it she knew I would appreciate, and also a special ticket to the 9–11 museum for next time I am in NY.

I was eating a quick lunch in a little Chinese restaurant today when a man and his young son approached my booth and asked if I was (my full name). My first thought was that he was an old school chum or former pal, but I certainly didn’t recognize him. When I confirmed my name, he handed me my keys with attached gym photo card. He said had seen them lying in the parking lot between my card and the restaurant and recognize me from the photo card. There were at least seven shops in the row with my restaurant, so who knows how long he looked for me. I could hardly express how appreciative I was and simply shook his hand, looked him straight in the eye and in the most sincere way I could muster thanked him and promised to pass the favor on. I then thanked his little boy, who shyly ducked his little head. Nice experience – made my day.

Darn.

Doesn’t Fluther have any heart transplant recipients?

I was feeling down last week, and talked about it to my grandma. She, in turn, told one of her British friends about my feeling stressed.

The following morning, I opened my e-mail account to find an extraordinarily kind and uplifting message from that friend. We don’t know each other very well, but that message cheered me right up. It was just so…British. Lovely!

Probably fifty years ago. Well, three years ago the sweetest woman imaginable, about forty, gave me an orchid for Mothers’ Day and pinned it on me. But, then, her church dreamed it up and a few other women got one from her too. Barely counts. I almost cried. Not used to such sweet demonstrations.

It happens all the time on Fluther. Someone writes a Q or an answer about a difficulty in life and jellies rush in to reassure and help.

In my own life it happens a lot. My husband a few days ago said something along the lines of wanting to help me work through a struggle I am having and the way he worded it was like taking a big dose of Xanax. I felt the tension leave my body. This while we have been arguing quite often and have tons of stress lately. It was unexpected, because of our state lately. It took me off guard.

People do nice things all the time. As a child I never saw it, I didn’t feel it, but as an adult I see it all around.

About a month ago, a coworker lit into me and told me I was being selfish (this was while I was doing two people’s jobs in 40 hours/week because her school’s counterpart of my job had given her two weeks about a month before a huge audit. Long story short, I went up to the office of a lady there with whom I’m friends, and had a good cry.

A few hours later I stopped by the office of a friend to ask about something totally unrelated, not realizing he knew about everything that had happened. He told me to come in and sit down, and asked me how I was doing. He was so kind I felt myself on the verge of tears again. He must have picked up on this because he said that if I needed to cry, he understood, and to go ahead. He ended up talking with me for about 20 minutes, assuring me that I was doing a great job, that I needed to realize that I could only do much in so much time, and that I should stop beating myself up about it (I do tend to be too hard on myself.)

I discovered that day what a wonderful friend this guy is, and our friendship has further strengthened since that day. It was his support and encouragement that enabled me to keep going despite further difficulty from this lady.

Well that’s lovely @yankeetooter. Sometimes we’re so lost stressing about things, we are oblivious to the amazing people who are in our corner supporting us. I’m glad your friend was there for you.

My Son is searching for a replacement for my PTSD service Animal prior to the passing of my present one.

Me too, @Earthbound_Misfit , me too.

Oh @majorrich, that’s so sad. I don’t know much about PTSD animals, can you tell me more? What sort of animal was your friend? A dog, cat? Animals are so incredible and how lovely of your son to realise the importance to you and to try to organise a replacement. That’s so special in and of itself.

I found this question again after @yankeetooter posted. There are so many lovely stories here. Sometimes it’s easy to forget how wonderful and kind people can be. There are some great stories here to remind us of this reality. We may have our flaws as a species, but every now and then, someone reaches out and shows us the beauty human beings can demonstrate too.

I have a love of cats. I need a heavy bodied gentle cat for when things are kind of bad. I sometimes cant feel the heft of smaller cats and am afraid of injuring them. Cuddles is a Maine Coon and is pretty big. He seems to know when I am getting anxious and jumps up and does his cuddling jobs. But at 15, he is getting old and we want to not have a lapse in ‘Cattage’. The VA made arrangements for a service dog, but I don’t like dogs very well and can’t care for them as they need. Cuddles is as large as a smallish dog, and was quite robust in his prime. He sleeps most of the time now and tries to stay close, but can’t intervene like used to.

They’re huge @majorrich. I can see how a Maine Coon would be perfect and yes, cats are less dependent on us but they can be very attentive to the person they love. I hope your son can find you a cat to build a friendship with for when Cuddles steps down from his post. Speaking of cats, mine just arrived. He’s very noisy.