👨‍🔧 Sometimes help comes from the most unexpected places.

It’s a short one this week because I’m in Ireland. It’s my mom’s 80th birthday today and I’m here to celebrate it with her.

My mom lives in a town about 45 minutes from the city of Galway in the west of Ireland. If you’ve never been there, I promise it’s worth a visit, even in cold, rainy weather at the end of February.

On Tuesday my mom drove us into Galway to pick up my friend who was arriving on a bus from Dublin airport.

About 10 minutes out from the city, as we were hurtling down the country road, my mom’s car started refusing to go into any gear. We had to stop on the side of the road. As we stood there, wondering what the hell we were going to do now, a man came out of THE ONLY HOUSE in the vicinity.

"What's happened?" he asked.

"My car won't go into gear," said my mom.

"Ah, haven't you burnt out the clutch—I can smell it from here. I tell you what. There's a garage just down the road and I'll phone yer man and get him to come and pick up the car and he can fix it for you. Where were you going anyway?"

"We're on our way into the city," said my mom. "We're picking up a friend who's arriving in half an hour and she'll be standing on the side of the road waiting for us now."

"Aaaah well," he said, "I know a man who drives a bus from up north down to Galway and I'll see if he's heading this way."

So he got on his phone. "Hello John, I'm here with two ladies broken down on the side of the road and they need to get into the city to meet a friend. Are you on your way to Galway?"

The bus driver was, in fact, just 5 minutes away from where we were standing. He stopped and picked us up and, before we knew it, we were waiting at the bus station for our friend to get off the bus from Dublin. You can see our happy, smiling faces in the picture she took of us after we met up.

Has someone forwarded this to you?

I don't believe in woo stuff and I know we were just really lucky but it brought home to me how, on our journeys through life, when we hit difficult spots, there are people who are ready and able to help us.

The man from the only house nearby, the bus driver who stopped on his route for us, they were our unexpected heroes on that day. They didn't see us as strangers to be ignored but as fellow humans who needed help.

That day, on the side of the road, wasn't just luck. It was a testament to the incredible web of human kindness that exists when we open ourselves up to it.

Want to know more about how I can help you?

I’ll be back to my regular schedule next week. See you then!