4/13/98
Today I received this in E-mail. I have to share it with you. I hope you are as moved as I was when I read it.
Hello from Alaska ;)
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Angels Unaware
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It was a rainy night in New Orleans;
At a bus station in the town,
I watched a young girl weeping
As her baggage was taken down.
It seems she'd lost her ticket
Changing buses in the night.
She begged them not to leave her there
With no sign of help in sight.
The bus driver had a face of stone
And his heart was surely the same.
"Losing your ticket's like losing cash money,"
He said, and left her in the rain.
Then an old Indian man stood up
And blocked the driver's way
And would not let him pass before
he said what he had to say.
"How can you leave that girl out there?
Have you no God to fear?
You know she had a ticket.
You can't just leave her here.
You can't put her out in a city
Where she doesn't have a friend.
You will meet your schedule,
But she might meet her end."
The driver showed no sign
That he'd heard or even cared
About the young girl's problem
Or how her travels fared.
So the old gentleman said,
"For her fare I'll pay.
I'll give her a little money
To help her on her way."
He went and bought the ticket
And helped her to her place
And helped her put her baggage
In the overhead luggage space.
"How can I repay," she said,
"the kindness you've shown tonight?
We're strangers who won't meet again
A mere ' thank you ' doesn't seem right."
He said, "What goes around comes around.
This I've learned with time - -
What you give, you always get back;
What you sow, you reap in kind.
Always be helpful to others
And give what you can spare;
For by being kind to strangers,
We help angels unaware."
Author Unknown
I truly don't know the person that sent this, so I must conclude
that it must have come from one of the "Angels" here in Cyber space, which is
why I felt the extreme need to post it to the site tonight.
My father raised me to always share
whatever bread might be on our table, and this says that better then I ever could.
4/14/98
Update: I received another letter from the person who sent this to me. They said, and I am quoting directly from the E-mail,
"we've never met in person tho you
helped me thru a slippery place once thanks, you may have saved my life bye
a friend of bill w.",
To me that is the highest compliment I could ever receive
and
yet I know in my heart that I had very little to do with saving anyone. This person simply
reached for the lifeline that we have in the program of AA and other 12 step programs and
he/she saved their self. I am but a vehicle for others to use in the search for Serenity.
Thank God (my Higher Power) and Angels that some one was there for me when I needed them
back on 7/31/86.."Alaska", I hope I can always be here for you
or anyone that needs me to be. Thank you for sharing the bread at my
table.