Source: Reddit
I was walking down the sidewalk one night and saw this man sitting on the railing of a bridge that was I’m guessing 75 feet above the ground, it going over a rocky covert in a small town. It got me very concerned so I decide to talk to him…he had given up, lost custody of his kids amongst everything else he worked hard for after a brutal breakup and didn’t feel that anybody cared enough for him that he would be gone, I sat right next to him and we talked for an hour about life before he went back to the sidewalk.
He slipped into drinking heavily and started using drugs to cope with feeling like he lost everything and couldn’t ever get it all back, he was a young man, barely 30 at the time. Before losing it all he had a landscaping company that was almost a couple years old, he only did mowing and other jobs that didn’t require other workers so that he could build a reputation and his depression from the breakup and losing his physical rights drove him to sell his assets to cope.
I assured him that despite his drastic choices to cope it’s not too late to work on taking the steps he needs to better himself so that his kids can have a father to look up to. We went to the pub down the way, as that’s where I was heading and we had a couple drinks and I let him crash at my place for the night and hooked him up with some clothes I don’t wear and a hotel room for a week and wrote down some places he can go to get help he needs to take those steps.
Normally I wouldn’t do this for a stranger but I got a vibe from him that he’s a good man that is at rock bottom. After we parted ways I never seen or heard from him until yesterday, he found my facebook and sent me a message thanking me for being a kind stranger. He spent the week at the hotel room taking on day labor jobs and ended up keeping that room for 3 weeks, he also went to the county offices to apply for benefits and was able to get help securing section 8 housing so long he found a job, which he ended up doing and 3 years later he has just been awarded one day a week visitation to his kids because of his progress and has a rent to own 3 bedroom house, a truck and his mowing business started back up shortly after the pandemic shut alot of society down.
It felt great to know that I made an impact in somebody’s life, somebody I don’t know and I hope that he keeps doing well for himself. Don’t be afraid to help someone in need, whether it’s a stranger or a close friend or family member. It may be just enough to motivate them to get back on the right track
