The Kindness of Strangers crossingthethreshold.net

@crossingthethreshold Thank you for yet a reminder that people can be nice to each other. The fact that you haven’t forgotten about this simple, yet profound gesture is reason enough to do it. He could have also given you a ride though. 😃

@odd You make a good point that I had not thought about, the fact that I remember the act after such a long period of time. Yesterday the trigger was feeling the sun on my neck, but it has always been present in my mind. We never know who or how are acts will influence others and how those effects will ripple out.

@crossingthethreshold That is very true. We have no guarantees in life, but I believe good things will happen to people who are good to others. It’s remarkable how a sense, like the sun on your neck, can transport us decades in time. I remember being in Stockholm in 2000, waiting for an elevator, and in a split second I went from having sensed a smell, to thinking about my late grandfather. The reason was, in 1981, my father and I visited him in the hospital, on his final days, and we had to take an elevator to the floor where he was, and the elevator stopped between floors, scaring me a bit, (I was 12), and there I smelled hot grease, just like I did 19 years later in Stockholm.

@odd Yes, the power of smell. I can’t think of an example right now, but I know that I have experienced something similar to you in the hospital…doing something, I smell something and instantly transported to an event from years, maybe decades before.