Unexpected Kindness

It has been one CRAZY week. I have so many ridiculous stories to share with you! 

I'll start off with one of my happy ones :)

This past Saturday I decided to actually get dressed for the day to run some errands.

Amelia, my fellow sales wife, came with me to grab Ryan from his knocking area for him to deposit a work check. So we hop in my Jetta and make our way 25 minutes north to Norco where he was. We pick up Ryan, visit a Wells Fargo, then go back to drop off Ryan in his area. 

I turn onto the main road within the community Ryan and his team were at, when I start to notice that the wheel of my car kept on pulling to the left. I'm thinking "well that's really odd" and decide to pull into the next street to take a look at my tire. I hop out of the car to see my front left tire completely flat, and I just deflate right along with it. I am about to call AAA, when I hear a man's voice from an open garage nearby: 

"You ladies having some trouble?"

I can't see anyone but answer back that yes, our tire had popped and that we were going to call AAA. He tells us to not waste our miles and that he will send his son, Nick, out to fix it for us. When the son walked out, honestly he looked a little sketch. Ok, a lot sketch. He looked like a bro, all tatted up, piercings everywhere and smelled of smoke. If I had seen him randomly on the street, I would have been scared. But irregardless he walked right up to us, smiled wide and asked me to please open the trunk so he could grab the spare tire to get started on my car.

My tire was COMPLETELY bald on the inside edge of both front tires. Doesn't it look absolutely horrible?! I'm shocked that I even made it this long without both front tires exploding. After a near heart attack about my tire I walked into the garage to talk with the dad, Jim, and to check out the custom street bike he was working on. Gorgeous champagne and copper paint with cognac ostrich leather seats, a work of art to say the least! I asked him the generic question of what he had planned for this Memorial Day weekend and Jim releases a huge sigh when he quietly states that his girlfriend had recently passed away, 2 weeks ago. I was surprised that he was ok to talk about such a personal topic with a stranger, but I still responded with "I'm so sorry for your loss...that must be so difficult". 

Jim lit up and went on to explain that he made a choice to not mope around, but instead was determined to live life to the fullest every day and to not take one day for granted. This holiday weekend he would spend riding through God's finest up in Big Bear. As we came around to finishing our little heart to heart I mentioned that it is always nice to have family and friends around in times like this and he responded: 

"In the end, that's all we've got right?"

I look out to the curb to see that Nick had finished changing my tire and he directed us towards the closest America's Tires. He told us to come back right away if there was anything else wrong with the car. I had been thinking of making some baked goods for them as a "thanks" when Amelia has the brilliant idea to hit the grocery store and grab some drinks. 

Ok...you should all know by now that I'm LDS {mormon} and I have never touched a drop of alcohol in my life nor do I plan to. And this isn't a usual practice of mine but knowing that outside of our culture it's an offer of thanks to buy someone a drink, we walked around Ralph's asking what the "manliest beer" was...then settled on a 30-pack of Budweiser.

{Buying our first & only alcoholic beverage, and of course we had to document it}

We drove back around the corner to the house where we were stranded and walked back up to the garage with our "thanks" in hand. The dad's jaw dropped and he gave us huge hugs telling us that we were so sweet for bringing back drinks and that we didn't need to do that. He grabbed the son from inside and Nick was also full of hugs and smiles while expressing his thanks and disbelief. We wished them a Happy Memorial Day weekend and were on our way.

I can't even express to you how full my heart was when this was all happening. Knowing that if we had pulled on to any other street that we wouldn't have received the same kindness and service that we had.  It was a complete reminder that no matter what we look like, who we are, or where we are from...that we are all children of the same Heavenly Father. We are here on this Earth to look out for and take care of each other. I'm just grateful that I turned on to that specific street and had the opportunity to meet Nick & Jim :)