I don’t know if we often think about helping other’s out very often… Like going out of our way to help someone. When was the last time you saw a car stranded on the side of the road and stopped to see if they needed help?

For me, that was on Sunday.

I had been out grocery shopping. Everything was loaded into my car and I happened to notice a pick-up truck across the lot with his hood up. Strange, I thought. I wondered what was wrong. I saw an elder gentleman wandering around, looking under his hood. But, adhering to stereotypes, I assumed an elder gentleman must’ve had it in hand. So I jumped in my car and drove away.

Except I didn’t. I drove past the car and was swallowed by the sense that I had to stop. Now, for a good part of the year, we were plagued by a dead battery. It would randomly die and anytime you’d use any auxiliary power, it would certainly die, so we carried a portable charger. Knowing it was still in the car, I felt compelled to at least offer help.

I was done with my outing, my only stop was to Tim Horton’s for a breakfast sandwich I didn’t need and a coffee I would probably be disappointed in anyway.Sooo… I turned around and parked two doown from them.

I got out of the car and went up to the truck, I surprised the gentleman – I don’t think he was expecting anyone to come over!

The truck would turn over but not catch. Lights and auxiliary features came on, but it wouldn’t start. DIdn’t really start like a battery thing, but I offered the battery booster anyway, because maybe it would help. As it happened, a young man from the grocery store had also come to their aid and he took the charger from me and hooked it up.

It didn’t make the truck start, so it wasn’t a battery issue. But I felt I had done the right thing. If I drove off, it would have bothered me all day. It took 4 minutes out of my day and even though my attempt was unsuccessful, I tried.

Too often we hurry off thinking ‘someone else will stop’, or ‘the next person will help’, or ‘I don’t have time’, and while that may be true, maybe we should all take the time to just step and help our fellow humans out once and a while.