An act of kindness

persevere · August 14

Recently I had an electrician out to give me an estimate on several things. Very nice guy. Quite. It was really more than I had planned to spend so after a little back and forth I just said ok. I don’t think he had gotten a good look at my wife (stage 7b) when he came to do the estimate. When he came to do the work it was a 2 day project with some follow up when parts got in. When he was done he presented me with the bill. He only wanted to charge me about a fourth of what he had quoted. Basically just cost. I knew what he was doing but I couldn’t do that. I said you worked too hard for me to only pay this. He said “you’re the one working hard “. Honestly, I can’t recall anyone ever doing something like this in the 7 years I’ve been doing this. I didn’t consider it pity. He just wanted to do something nice. Maybe he had experienced it in another life. Anyway, I didn’t want to hurt his feelings but I wasn’t going to let him do that. So I gave him about 75% of his estimate and told him i wanted to pay it forward by sending him to my helper’s house to do some work. Worked out really well. Maybe some of you have some good news stories.

Lethe · August 14

That is such a nice story. There are kind people out there.

Biggles · August 14

persevere what a great post. How wonderful to receive kindness in such a practical way. You have brought heartfelt tears to my eyes while I sit on the couch next to my sleeping DH and Schnoodle. We are all too aware of how many businesses are struggling and how stretched people are for time and workers, what a kind guy. I too feel so lucky, although I am surrounded by challenges I am also surrounded by so much kindness. The grocery delivery man who has offered to look after our Schnoodle in an emergency, the chap who came to fit our solar panels and repaired the outside generator power point for nothing, the volunteer from Sailability who has a construction company fixed our 6’ fence and fitted a two way gate lock for nothing. The respect and consideration my DH gets from all of these people and from our house cleaner and gardeners and my list goes on. You can’t do this job alone and all of these people renew my faith and help me survive this demanding awful disease. Thankyou.