This amazing tale of the kindness of strangers has gone viral all over again
It began when writer Nicole Cliffe asked this on Twitter.
‘What is the kindest thing a stranger has done or said to you?’
And it prompted lots and lots of replies, but none of the stories were quite so amazing as this one, which has just gone viral all over again on Reddit.
This is why.
Oh God I can’t even tell this story and not cry.
I used to manage an LGBT bookstore, when bookstores were still a thing. One night, a caller says he thinks he might be gay and is considering self-harm. We were not a crisis center!
But as long as we’re talking, he’s safe, right?— 💁🏼♂️ (@TweetChizone) March 4, 2019
So I talk to this guy and I answer questions, and I try to be encouraging and I’m maybe sounding a little frantic and I’m definitely ignoring the 4-5 customers in the store, and this angel of a woman puts her hand on my shoulder and asks for the phone.
“My turn,” she says.— 💁🏼♂️ (@TweetChizone) March 4, 2019
And SHE, this 50-something lesbian talks to this stranger on the phone. And a LINE FORMS BEHIND HER. Every customer in that store knows that call, knows that feeling, and every person takes a turn talking to that man.
That story comforts me so much to this day.— 💁🏼♂️ (@TweetChizone) March 4, 2019
‘I’m not crying, you’re crying!’ said MarionPreis who shared it on Reddit and prompted lots of comments like these.
‘This is so wholesome. I want everyone who was in that lines name and I will personaly give them a fkn medal for hopefully helping that man on the phone not to self-harm.’ this_boi_right_here_
‘I hope this is a real story because it’s so heart warming.’ bethkatez
And it prompted another Redditor, thefoag, to share a story of their own.
‘I used to sell phones in a popular mall in Toronto.
‘A woman ran up to me frantically asking for help as her phone broke and she urgently needed it working. She was crying pretty hysterically, hyperventilating too. I was trying to fix the phone but after 3 seconds she says, “I don’t give a shit, I need a phone I’ll buy one” as she grabs her wallet aggressively from her purse. At this point I asked her what was going on, and she looked dead in my eyes and says, “he’s going to die”. I grabbed her SIM card from her phone and put it in mine and handed it to her, without hesitation. She asked if she could call international and because it was a work phone, it allowed these calls, of course I agreed (it’s covered by the company, within reason). She was on the phone for a while. I had to help a lot of customers, and when I turned I realized she had silently left phone with a colleague of mine and a sticky note that said, “you saved his life”. That really shook me, even without context.
‘Maybe around 10 months to a year later, I was working at another store (but same company) and this lady is back, but with somebody. It was a teenage guy, middle eastern. He had started to get emotional before our introduction, as did the woman. I said hello to the woman and that “I didn’t get a chance to ask about what happened”. She tells me that this young man, Farzad, was on the other line in Iran. The woman told me she is a sponsor for gay men in countries in which homosexuality is deemed illegal or unacceptable. She continues to say that her son killed himself at 19 and that she dedicated her life to being there for anyone who felt the same way her son felt, in times of need. Farzad told me that he had been planning to move to Toronto but had hit so many roadblocks in trying to leave Iran, that he was going to take his own life. He had said that he was sitting, knife in hand, that day that Mary (the woman who used my phone) had dropped the call. He asked me if he could give me a hug and of course I obliged.
‘She told me that she had gone to 2 other cell phone stores asking to use a phone but was disallowed due to it being international. She then told me, while she was leaving, she wished her son knew me when he was alive. That one is the one that gets me every time.’
Source Reddit MarionPreis
