What's the kindest thing anyone has ever done for you?

My Ex borrowed a motorcycle and rode 80 miles in the rain to see me when we were dating one night because I said I was lonely.

Birthed and reared me.

When my husband was very ill and missed work for several weeks last February the grandmother of my daughter’s best friend brought us a huge leftover meal from a church gathering. She also gave us $40 for gas to help with all the travel for hospital and doctor visits and also a $50 Gift Card from our local grocery.

This family also helped us move in July and has paid the fee for summer church camp for our daughter the past three years.

We are so lucky to have this family in our life.

My knee-jerk answer to this question is the love and understanding in which my mother raised me. I was a tough kid to raise; always curious, always experimenting, always into things I wasn’t supposed to be into, burning bright with excess energy, always wandering off into some crazy adventure perpetrated by a limitless imagination… I was brought home more times by the scruff of the neck than I can count. I was probably what they call ADHD today. Thank god she didn’t have me put on Ritalin. Instead, she somehow found the time to deal with it and still raise six other kids. She instructed my teachers at school to just pile on the work and keep me busy. It worked, and I made it to adulthood because of her—unscathed and uninstitutionalized.

All the many wonderful kindnesses people have done for me since pale in comparison to the importance of her love and patience in those years. In the wrong hands, things could have been much, much different for me. Thanks, mom.

Too many to write them all, and impossible to rank one as the kindest.

A huge pay it forward moment was when I came out of a very upsetting doctor’s appointment and my car wouldn’t start. I was over an hour away from home. A guy parked next to me tried to jump start the car, but it didn’t work. He removed the battery, drove me to Sears (a store with an automotive department) we had the battery tested, I bought a new one, he drove me back and put the battery in. The car started! He would not take money from me. I still feel badly that he wouldn’t take any money. He looked like he could really use it.

Another is when I had a devastating break up with a long term boyfriend. Friends of mine came to visit, checked on me, and listened to me cry. I even slept in bed one night with one of my roommates I was so upset. They really were there for me.

I’ll leave you with those two.

Around age 22, I dropped out of college, severed ties with my parents, and tried to make a go of it on my own.
When I failed, my great aunt took me in, no questions asked, no strings attached.
She lived in a brick 4-plex next to a church. The church had bought it as a tear-down for parking space, 20+ years earlier, and never updated the original interior.
Cavernous space.

I think I was on my feet in 4–8 months, she was my failsafe. My angel.

Been a true friend.

Too many to rank or list. When I’m in need and someone goes out of their busy way to help, it’s wonderful. When I was younger and chronically broke, I had a boyfriend who would lend me money all the time. Now that I’m not financially needy, help people may give is of a different nature – something needed with house repair, stuff like that. Hard to say that one favor beats another. It’s all kind, it’s all appreciated and it’s all welcomed.

When I was admitted to the psych ward, my best friend wrote a 7 page letter to me detailing how worried he was about me, how big of an impact I’ve made on his life, and each and every reason he cares about me. He also drew my original character (who has survived lots of trauma, lost his entire family and is very depressed and suicidal) older and reaching out to me, telling me to be happy with him.

He’s the only person to ever show me that kind of love and support on such a personal level before.