It is always dark and lonely in Missoula at 4:30 on a winter morning, but this particular morning it was even more so.  We were under a blizzard alert.  Snow had been falling heavily all night on an icy layer of freezing rain.  Winds had whipped up drifts.  Snowplows had not yet reached our neighborhood. Lyle was taking a 5:30 flight from the airport across town.  It was hard getting out of the driveway, but backing downhill gave me momentum to get onto the street.  Coming back was a different story. 

It is especially dark and lonely in Missoula at 4:30 am in a blizzard.  It is even more so when you are stuck in a snowdrift, half-in-half-out of the driveway and a snowplow roars by within inches of your bumper.  It is daunting to dig out with a small shovel and a bad back after that plow has pushed up a berm of additional snow to pen you in.  I was near tears, but tears in a blizzard don't do much good, so I started to dig.  The digging didn't last long.

A small pickup truck pulled up on the dark, lonely street and the two guys inside asked if I needed help. Yes!  They jumped out and with youthful vigor cleared the snow in minutes.  They made sure I got up the driveway and into the garage.  They handed back my shovel and, with it, my newspaper. 

Overflowing with gratitude, I sent a message to the newspaper's circulation department.  I posted a thank-you on Facebook (it was re-posted and triggered nearly 800 "Likes").  I shared my experience with the neighborhood mailing list.  I wrote a thank-you note and included a tip.  This is not the first time I have been touched by the kindness of strangers, but again it comes with surprise.  Self-sufficiency and urgency are cultural norms that inhibit the helping hand.   Customers down the street may well have been grumbling because their papers were later than usual that day; little did they know (and would they have cared about?) the reason why.

The merging of need and response did not stop there.  A week has passed since two men in a small pickup truck made mine a better day in the blizzard at 4:30 am.  Every morning since, they have come up the driveway and delivered my paper to the porch instead of leaving it by the mailbox as usual.  We are still strangers, but we are connected by a bond of giving and receiving, generosity and gratitude. 

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What lessons have you learned from giving and receiving unexpected acts of kindness?  What goes through your mind when you are in a hurry and someone else's need comes into view?