The Nicest Moment That Ever Happened...

[Loyal]

to me.

I transferred from Portland, OR to Wichita, KS to marry a girl. We met on the internet and dated through email. We asked each other questions and got to know one another, each sitting at our computers and responding immediately to the conversation. I asked her to marry me in 1997 and she said yes. Soon, I left with my Camry packed tightly with my things. I arrived at her house in Kansas and I met her the first time face to face after I drove into her garage. I said "Honey, I'm home. Just promise we will never go on Geraldo." The next day we went to get married before a judge, wearing Ray Ban sunglasses on his head, with my wife's Brother and sister in law as witnesses. This was very sweet and nice, but the best would happen the next day.

We called her parents the night before and she introduced me to her Mom and Dad. Her Mom sounded nice, but skeptical. Her Dad was blunt and gruff like a Kansas farmer who hates talking on phones. I didn't mention the tight ass suit I had worn for our wedding with a tie. We drove straight from the wedding to her parents farm. Her Dad was 6 foot 5 inches and was still a very strong man in his 70's, wearing a constantly pissed off expression.

I thought, He's gonna kill me.

I sat at the kitchen table with my wife and my mother in law. Her father sat across from me, not saying much, when he suddenly got up without a word and went into the other room. Is he getting shot gun, I wondered. I was sweating to death in that suit and the tie was choking me half to death .He returned with a photo album and placed it on the table before me opening it on the table. He said very gently, "Let me show you your family"

I was blown away by his unexpected kindness and still am after 25 years of marriage. Remember, they didn't know I existed until the night before. He showed picture after picture, but I didn't see anything because I was still gobsmacked. and relieved. We got to know each other over the years and I loved them dearly..

Well this was the most kind moment in my life. I have had other moments of kindness, but tell a moment of kindness you experienced

 

[oldnotdead]

It was this time of year, in 1974. I had just gotten home from Nam, and had watched the love of my life get murdered by a drunk driver all the year before. Back then the Navy decided to transfer me to reserve status to eventually finish out my enlistment a few years later. I was a head case in their opinion. They had no concept of PTSD back then. I was just being overdramatic and not man enough, or maybe just tired in their eyes. Getting your chopper shot down 3 times will somehow do that to you.

I was sitting at the counter at the House of Pies on the corner of Canoga and Ventura Blvd, drinking my coffee and munching on some crumb-topped apple pie. The waitress there and I were friends so she would talk to me between helping customers. She knew I was a mental mess. She knew my deceased GF (they were friends) and understood what I was going through. It was close to closing time so she told me to follow her home after she got off. She lived about a mile or two from the Pie House in a house built literally around a huge live oak tree on the hill immediately south of Ventura Blvd. The house belonged to her grandmother but she had moved to northern California.

The next morning she persuaded me to go with her to her grandmother's home in rural Northern California. So we just stopped by my apartment so I could pack and off we went. It was inland from Crescent City. We spent the next night in Fort Bragg, California before getting to grandma's. We spent 3 days doing nothing but talking and wandering around the woods bordering her property. For the first time I could decompress and she listened to all my horror stories and was genuinely empathetic.

When we drove back home I was for the first time in 18 months genuinely happy. We grabbed a big shopping bag and filled it with cherries from grandma's tree. Grandma was great and simply accepted me much like taking in a stray dog in a rain storm. As we drove home munching on cherries we tried to spit the pits out of the window but many simply got blown back in and ricocheted around the car while we laughed hysterically.

To this day I can't eat fresh cherries without remembering that day. She saved my life because I was bordering suicidal. I have always been humbled and grateful to that wonderful girl. Janet was only 19 but had the wisdom and insight of someone twice her age.

Janet after lunch in Morro Bay

 

[Memento]

I was about to commit suicide on June 1st 2015.

I was clearly upset and distraught, walking through red lights, daring someone to hit me. Nobody did. I heard a lot of honking, but I paid it no mind.

All the while, I had brought my gaming system - a Nintendo 3DS - and the Pokemon games I owned in my pockets: the only possessions of mine.

There were plenty of people who walked by me. Nobody stopped to talk to me. Nobody said so much as, “Hello.” If someone had, I probably wouldn’t have jumped.

But before I did, I put my 3DS and games on a park bench. I didn’t need them where I was going, and I figured someone else could make better use of them.

I jumped off a lonely bridge. I would’ve jumped on the highway, but I didn’t want to hurt anyone: I just wanted to die.

I suffered through hallucinations from the medicine used to keep me in a state between life and death. I coded twice. I got revived twice. And the pain…I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, no matter how evil.

When I woke up, my mom was there…as well as the gaming system and games I left behind. I was stunned.

Turns out a young mother and her two kids knew that the games and 3DS belonged to someone who jumped off a bridge. They could’ve easily taken them, but they waited to give them to my mom.

I never met them, never saw them, but that display of utter kindness and humanity always stuck with me, and I still cry, and hope they know somehow just how grateful I am to them.

 

[nighttrain]

I was about to commit suicide on June 1st 2015.

I was clearly upset and distraught, walking through red lights, daring someone to hit me. Nobody did. I heard a lot of honking, but I paid it no mind.

All the while, I had brought my gaming system - a Nintendo 3DS - and the Pokemon games I owned in my pockets: the only possessions of mine.

There were plenty of people who walked by me. Nobody stopped to talk to me. Nobody said so much as, “Hello.” If someone had, I probably wouldn’t have jumped.

But before I did, I put my 3DS and games on a park bench. I didn’t need them where I was going, and I figured someone else could make better use of them.

I jumped off a lonely bridge. I would’ve jumped on the highway, but I didn’t want to hurt anyone: I just wanted to die.

I suffered through hallucinations from the medicine used to keep me in a state between life and death. I coded twice. I got revived twice. And the pain…I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, no matter how evil.

When I woke up, my mom was there…as well as the gaming system and games I left behind. I was stunned.

Turns out a young mother and her two kids knew that the games and 3DS belonged to someone who jumped off a bridge. They could’ve easily taken them, but they waited to give them to my mom.

I never met them, never saw them, but that display of utter kindness and humanity always stuck with me, and I still cry, and hope they know somehow just how grateful I am to them.

 

[nighttrain]

dying is easy, livin is hard.
train

 

[Memento]

dying is easy, livin is hard.
train

True that.

 

[Tano]

I was about to commit suicide on June 1st 2015.

I was clearly upset and distraught, walking through red lights, daring someone to hit me. Nobody did. I heard a lot of honking, but I paid it no mind.

All the while, I had brought my gaming system - a Nintendo 3DS - and the Pokemon games I owned in my pockets: the only possessions of mine.

There were plenty of people who walked by me. Nobody stopped to talk to me. Nobody said so much as, “Hello.” If someone had, I probably wouldn’t have jumped.

But before I did, I put my 3DS and games on a park bench. I didn’t need them where I was going, and I figured someone else could make better use of them.

I jumped off a lonely bridge. I would’ve jumped on the highway, but I didn’t want to hurt anyone: I just wanted to die.

I suffered through hallucinations from the medicine used to keep me in a state between life and death. I coded twice. I got revived twice. And the pain…I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, no matter how evil.

When I woke up, my mom was there…as well as the gaming system and games I left behind. I was stunned.

Turns out a young mother and her two kids knew that the games and 3DS belonged to someone who jumped off a bridge. They could’ve easily taken them, but they waited to give them to my mom.

I never met them, never saw them, but that display of utter kindness and humanity always stuck with me, and I still cry, and hope they know somehow just how grateful I am to them.

We need a hug emoji

 

[Loyal]

I was about to commit suicide on June 1st 2015.

I was clearly upset and distraught, walking through red lights, daring someone to hit me. Nobody did. I heard a lot of honking, but I paid it no mind.

All the while, I had brought my gaming system - a Nintendo 3DS - and the Pokemon games I owned in my pockets: the only possessions of mine.

There were plenty of people who walked by me. Nobody stopped to talk to me. Nobody said so much as, “Hello.” If someone had, I probably wouldn’t have jumped.

But before I did, I put my 3DS and games on a park bench. I didn’t need them where I was going, and I figured someone else could make better use of them.

I jumped off a lonely bridge. I would’ve jumped on the highway, but I didn’t want to hurt anyone: I just wanted to die.

I suffered through hallucinations from the medicine used to keep me in a state between life and death. I coded twice. I got revived twice. And the pain…I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, no matter how evil.

When I woke up, my mom was there…as well as the gaming system and games I left behind. I was stunned.

Turns out a young mother and her two kids knew that the games and 3DS belonged to someone who jumped off a bridge. They could’ve easily taken them, but they waited to give them to my mom.

I never met them, never saw them, but that display of utter kindness and humanity always stuck with me, and I still cry, and hope they know somehow just how grateful I am to them.

I'm so glad you are alive.

 

[IowaRam]

It was this time of year, in 1974. I had just gotten home from Nam, and had watched the love of my life get murdered by a drunk driver all the year before. Back then the Navy decided to transfer me to reserve status to eventually finish out my enlistment a few years later. I was a head case in their opinion. They had no concept of PTSD back then. I was just being overdramatic and not man enough, or maybe just tired in their eyes. Getting your chopper shot down 3 times will somehow do that to you.

I was sitting at the counter at the House of Pies on the corner of Canoga and Ventura Blvd, drinking my coffee and munching on some crumb-topped apple pie. The waitress there and I were friends so she would talk to me between helping customers. She knew I was a mental mess. She knew my deceased GF (they were friends) and understood what I was going through. It was close to closing time so she told me to follow her home after she got off. She lived about a mile or two from the Pie House in a house built literally around a huge live oak tree on the hill immediately south of Ventura Blvd. The house belonged to her grandmother but she had moved to northern California.

The next morning she persuaded me to go with her to her grandmother's home in rural Northern California. So we just stopped by my apartment so I could pack and off we went. It was inland from Crescent City. We spent the next night in Fort Bragg, California before getting to grandma's. We spent 3 days doing nothing but talking and wandering around the woods bordering her property. For the first time I could decompress and she listened to all my horror stories and was genuinely empathetic.

When we drove back home I was for the first time in 18 months genuinely happy. We grabbed a big shopping bag and filled it with cherries from grandma's tree. Grandma was great and simply accepted me much like taking in a stray dog in a rain storm. As we drove home munching on cherries we tried to spit the pits out of the window but many simply got blown back in and ricocheted around the car while we laughed hysterically.

To this day I can't eat fresh cherries without remembering that day. She saved my life because I was bordering suicidal. I have always been humbled and grateful to that wonderful girl. Janet was only 19 but had the wisdom and insight of someone twice her age.

View attachment 59747
Janet after lunch in Morro Bay

I might have missed it , so did you marry her ?

 

[Loyal]

It was this time of year, in 1974. I had just gotten home from Nam, and had watched the love of my life get murdered by a drunk driver all the year before. Back then the Navy decided to transfer me to reserve status to eventually finish out my enlistment a few years later. I was a head case in their opinion. They had no concept of PTSD back then. I was just being overdramatic and not man enough, or maybe just tired in their eyes. Getting your chopper shot down 3 times will somehow do that to you.

I was sitting at the counter at the House of Pies on the corner of Canoga and Ventura Blvd, drinking my coffee and munching on some crumb-topped apple pie. The waitress there and I were friends so she would talk to me between helping customers. She knew I was a mental mess. She knew my deceased GF (they were friends) and understood what I was going through. It was close to closing time so she told me to follow her home after she got off. She lived about a mile or two from the Pie House in a house built literally around a huge live oak tree on the hill immediately south of Ventura Blvd. The house belonged to her grandmother but she had moved to northern California.

The next morning she persuaded me to go with her to her grandmother's home in rural Northern California. So we just stopped by my apartment so I could pack and off we went. It was inland from Crescent City. We spent the next night in Fort Bragg, California before getting to grandma's. We spent 3 days doing nothing but talking and wandering around the woods bordering her property. For the first time I could decompress and she listened to all my horror stories and was genuinely empathetic.

When we drove back home I was for the first time in 18 months genuinely happy. We grabbed a big shopping bag and filled it with cherries from grandma's tree. Grandma was great and simply accepted me much like taking in a stray dog in a rain storm. As we drove home munching on cherries we tried to spit the pits out of the window but many simply got blown back in and ricocheted around the car while we laughed hysterically.

To this day I can't eat fresh cherries without remembering that day. She saved my life because I was bordering suicidal. I have always been humbled and grateful to that wonderful girl. Janet was only 19 but had the wisdom and insight of someone twice her age.

View attachment 59747
Janet after lunch in Morro Bay

Janet was great.

 

[oldnotdead]

Janet wasn't ready to marry or so she said. God knows I would have married her if she wanted. She had her own demons she was raped by her father between 10 & 13 before her mother caught him and shot him. Her mother committed suicide in prison doing 15 years for protecting her daughter. We helped each other. Understanding my utter devastation helped her understand her mother. She was basically a lesbian and I was the only man that she ever had sex with other than her father. I lost track of her in 1998 but we had gotten each other through the worst of times. At our last breakfast while Janet was taking a shower, her grandmother thanked me for helping her. That is when I found out what happened to her mother though I knew about the incest as the reason she didn't find men sexually attractive.

Janet made me realize it was okay to love and be loved again. I've been more than fortunate to have had some great women in my life.

If anyone out there is in trouble or knows anyone who might be, sometimes the best intervention is just a sympathetic ear and a non-judgemental mind. You don't really need to say much of anything, sometimes just being there to honestly listen is enough.

I suppose it's why fresh cherries will forever be my favorite fruit.

These pictures are the only two that I have. This was taken just south of Big Sur. A beautiful woman who was an even more beautiful human being.

Momento, I'm glad that you've been able to turn your life around.