Acts of Kindness witnessed

[runnerandme]

My daughter, in a wheelchair, my sisters and I travel together and we usually do quite well ourselves. My sister was alone with my daughter walking the promenade. I was lazy and did not want to walk. So after they passed me, I went thru the ship to the other side and sat in a chair and waved as the passed by. Then I went to the other side.I did this a few times. Another couple caught on to what I was doing and joined in the fun. Soon another couple joined in. My daughter was in giggles when she saw the "group". After my sister ( who walks very fast) could no longer keep up the pace, she thanked them all. Then we all went for a cool drink and chatted. We made friends that day that I will never forget.

[DMH15]

Ok, I will add another.

 

I cruise with my mom. She will be 78 soon. She is an incredible woman. Smart. Funny. Independent. But she has physical limitations. She voluntarily gave up the car keys several years ago. We know she has had at least one stroke and she walks slow or she gets winded. She sometimes gets dizzy and passes out. Once, we were at lunch with my SIL and she just keeled over. She was out! When she came too she didn't remember a thing.

 

On a cruise we keep to her pace. And we luckily love the Smaller Sun. But we love our stern PH. So walking to and fro can take forever. My mom rarely goes ashore, instead preferring a spa day. (We once, however did spend the day exploring Stanley in The Falkland Islands, she loved it!)

 

Anyways, in 2009 on the Sun we were to disembark in Buenos Aires and our fare included transfers to the airport. Well, we were chatting with our sweet concierge, Karin a few days before our cruise's end and she suggested we switch to a NCL tour that would take us to the airport afterwards. She made it sound so wonderful we agreed to the longer and more expensive one. We charged it to our onboard account.

 

The morning of departure we got up and had our final Cagney's breakfast and then walked to where the excursion groups were meeting. We spoke with them and explained how mom has to stop and rest often so we asked if we could slowly make our way to the front and meet the group there near reception. They said we could. When we arrived I spoke with reception and the crew person at the exit, explaining. I went to check a few times, since I am a worry-wart.

 

Well, one time she said, "they've left, where were you?". I said right over there and pointed. She said we'll just put you on the OTHER one that goes to the airport. I said that would be fine if we got a refund. She said we would not. I calmly said that was not acceptable. We had talked for about 3 minutes and I asked how long it had been since the bus left and she said 6 minutes. I said, can't they come back? She got on her radio and soon the bus returned. Karin had reserved the front row for her. When we boarded the tour guide looked at the sheet and said to the people in tge front seat it was reserved for my mom. They were not happy. They had thrown the reserved sign on the ground. Well, in a matter of seconds people started shouting mean and hateful things to us. How we shouldn't have missed the bus and how dare we have their excursion ruined on our account. This was an 8 hour excursion mind you. I actually shouted out my side of the story that we had been one of the first to check in and we were not late. This is one of the few times in my life I have seen my mother cry.

 

The first stop was a shopping trip to some stores. My mom was so upset she just stayed on the bus. Some of the people came walking by muttering obscenities or giving her/us dirty looks. I will never forget one lady came by and sorta squeezed my mothers shoulder/arm and said, "now honey you just don't worry about it, don't let these people ruin your last day.". I mouthed the words "thank you" and smiled. One person canmake a difference.

 

Ironically, the other tour met up with ours at the estancia later. Which was a fun experience. But we had been able to do some other things that were only on the longer tour. So we are glad we were able to do it.

 

Sorry this is so long, but I still get emotional when I think about it.