Check out the beautiful encounters shared by you, my readers, at the end of this blog post, stories about real life angels. Share your story here as a comment, I love hearing from you!
As the temperatures get crazy hot in Texas, as the news continues to suppress and sadden, I’ve been thinking of strangers I’ve met over the years who became friends, despite many miles of separation. There is something every place in the world seems to have in common: Little things matter. I remember the elderly French man in his flower garden, who offered us plants in pots to take home as a remembrance. The Italian mother who invited me into her home and fed me lasagna, because she wanted me to have a place to rest after I had learned my little dog Annie back home was grievously ill. The people of Barcelona who took in and comforted my US friends the day after September 11, during a gathering I missed because all flights, including mine, had been canceled. The teachers at King’s College in London who cared for me shortly after my father’s death. These tiny kindnesses are the biggest memories I carry from those travels.
If you have a memory of a shared kindness, I would love to hear from you. Share your story here and you’ll be in the drawing for a fine art print next week, you beautiful art friend, you! Congratulations to Kathe Altazan, who shared a comment last week, a fine art print of French Window Peeper Geraniums is on its way to you, Kathe!
PS: Something absolutely magical is coming your way – Paint Brilliant Italy, my new 6-week online class, is here! Learn more here!
PPS: See all the sights of my recent trip to Italy in my new monthly online class, The Joyful Brush, I want to take you with me in Petal Perks! Learn more here…
My mom, my sister, and I were traveling through Topeka, Kansas headed back to Alabama in 1973. We got so lost. I finally knocked on a door to ask directions. The young couple invited us in, made hot chocolate, called a motel to make a reservation, then had us follow them to the motel. It was such a sweet thing to do for some tired and stranded travelers.
Becky isn’t it funny how those memories never seem to fade! I love how life sprinkles angels along our paths when we need them most.
My husband and I had just heard our neighbor’s father had passed away unexpectedly. We were heart broken, we knew him well. I didn’t feel like cooking, so we went to a restaurant not far away for dinner. There was a couple at another table we did not know, had never seen before. I told my husband “I just want to buy their dinner. It will make me feel better.” He didn’t argue with me. We bought a strange couple’s dinner that night, and told our waitress “when they ask why, just tell them to do it for someone else. Just be kind, pay it forward, because sometimes that’s all we have left.”
When I was about 17, a group of about 6 or 7 of us had gone camping at my parents property in upstate New York. When we left for home, a thunderstorm came up. It was very dark and the rain made it hard to see. I put my turn signal on to pull out from the small road on to the highway. As I did that, a car came up behind me flashing its headlights. They pulled up beside us and shouted that the on ramp was not there, but a few feet ahead. I pulled up further and just as I made the turn, lightning flashed and I could see that had I turned at the first opening, we would have driven off a cliff and I would have killed everyone in the car. I looked back to see where the other car went and it was gone.there were no other cars on the road before or after that. Thank God they stopped us. I am forever grateful to those unknown drivers who saved us.
Lina that’s so scary, you have guardian angels watching over you!