He didn’t walk past
Jordan Hope is 18 and was on his way to the bank in Maricopa, Arizona. Outside a pharmacy he saw an older man with a walker whose shoes were barely staying on his feet. Jordan stopped, took off his own shoes and gave them to him.
But that was not all. He went with the man into the pharmacy, bought him his favourite sweets and arranged a ride home for him. In conversation he learned that the 80-year-old had lost his wife only two weeks earlier. What began as a chance encounter has since become a friendship.
What moves us about this story is less the pair of shoes than the time someone took. Sometimes closeness begins exactly where someone does not walk past.
When did a stranger last help you unexpectedly, or when did you last help someone else?