12 Times Kindness Made Us Believe There Is Still Some Magic in the World

In a world that often confuses gentleness with weakness, these people showed the opposite: kindness can be bold, disarming, and unstoppable. Their actions prove that compassion isn’t backing down—it’s stepping up in the strongest way possible.

• I was laid off from a job in 2012. My unemployment pay ran out, and after hundreds of job applications, I had no job offers. I even got turned down by Walmart. My husband’s job was our only source of income, and not enough to cover our bills. We lost our only vehicle to repossession in the middle of a very bad winter. This left him having to take three buses each way to and from work.
  
  Our then 9 YO son was getting buses to and from his school, which was several miles from our house. The school district decided to cut busing due to budget problems, so he lost his busing. I ended up having to take a public bus with him to school each morning, drop him off, take the bus back home, and repeat in the afternoons, picking him up on the bus, then waiting for a bus to go home. I was barely able to scrape up enough money for bus fare daily. And in the afternoons after school, we had a 30-45 minute wait for a bus to get home, shivering at the bus stop.
  
  The crossing guard at the school approached me one afternoon, and told me her second afternoon job was at an apartment complex across the street from my house. She had seen my son and I get off the bus there. She then offered to drive us home every afternoon, since she was going that way anyway. And she did. She’d give me the keys to her car, so we could sit in it and warm up, while she finished her guard shift. She did this for several months, until my husband and I managed to get financed for an old beater car just so we’d have a vehicle. I’m still profoundly thankful for her kindness, especially doing something like that for a total stranger. © Blossom73 / Reddit

• Once when I was like 9 years old, I was walking with my mom and 2 of my brothers. I tried to race a car that was coming up beside us in our neighborhood. Just dumb kid stuff, idk. Naturally, I didn’t do very well. But the old lady driving the car stopped, got out, and gave me this giant (to 9-year old me) bag of candy, and told me that my running was impressive and that if I practiced more I could do even better.
  
  So sometimes when I feel like nothing I do is going to go anywhere, I just remember that and remind myself that while I may not be as fast as a car, if I practice more, I can get better than I was yesterday. © AlternativeShadows / Reddit

• I was at the library so much as a kid, hiding from home, hiding from my neighborhood, sometimes falling asleep in the stacks, that a librarian put a cot in a mostly unused maintenance closet and gave me the key code. She also added a few amenities over time. A small spare book shelf, a blanket and stuffies.
  
  She never asked me why, but I could tell she had some vague idea. All she asked in return was me to tell her about what I read. I found her a dozen years later. She was retired but, I guess some of the others that worked there, she’d told them about our setup, I’m sure so they wouldn’t yell at me or whatever. They told me how to reach her.
  
  I took her to dinner to thank her in a small way. I told her all the background, which she had indeed more or less inferred. I was then fresh out of college working with at-risk kids. I told her that she was part of the reason. I could tell she treasured knowing. © s-multicellular / Reddit

• This happened years ago, but it still warms my heart. I’m a bartender at a restaurant, and a lady comes in by herself and is having a drink before her meal. She says she wants to pay for a specific beverage, but doesn’t want me to make it for her. She then told me this is her first time in without her husband who had passed away, and that was his favorite one. Whoever was the next person to come in and order that, it was on her.
  
  Fast forward to a couple hours later, a group of ladies come in together. One of them orders the same beverage. I tell her it’s been paid for, and why. She tears up a bit, and one of her friends says that she (the lady who got the free drink) had also recently lost her husband. They all thought it was meant to be, and it gave us all goosebumps. Needless to say we all were tearing up!
  © workstory / Reddit

• I got airsickness on my flight across the country and another mom (without her kids in tow) took my 2 year old, walked him down the aisles, played with him and even had him asleep in her lap. She also gave me her AirPods and an anti-nausea hypnosis medication to listen to. It was the nicest thing a stranger has ever done for me. I cried. © MarineBio-teacher / Reddit

• After my parents both passed, I was put in care of my uncle who had no idea how to treat or take care of a ten year old girl. I was very depressed, had terrible anxiety and was a total mess without my mom around to...well, be my mother.
  
  A few mothers in the neighborhood got together, helped me wash and brush out my knotty hair (it took hours,) got together some in good condition hand me downs that were clean, and spent the time to explain things that I was never going to learn from my uncle, that a growing girl needs to know. Honestly, their acts of kindness that day probably saved my life.
  © Unknown author / Reddit

• When I was seventeen, my aunt gave me a £50 note for Christmas. On the bus home, as I got up to get off, the note fell out of my pocket and a woman behind me instantly told me about it and gave it back.
  
  This was in a dirty, deprived part of town and I probably would have taken that £50 for myself. I won’t ever forget her choice to do the right thing in that moment. © zappapostrophe / Reddit

• My dad (aged 80) went to his village shop for a lightbulb which he and my mum really needed (my mum was recovering from surgery) and the shop didn’t have any left. My dad started to explain (you know how they do!) that it was for the landing and they couldn’t see etc. etc. and a young workman/builder (there are two new housing estates going up nearby) asked my dad what type he needed and told my dad to wait there and the guy went off into the next town in his car and got him one! Wouldn’t take any money for it when he returned. What a decent person...
  
  My mum was really worried because he’d been gone ages and was really touched when he got back and told her. Then, when they told me, I got a lump in my throat too! Honestly, how nice is that? © QuirkyMaterial / Reddit

• Mom raised 4 of us alone. Two jobs, no sleep. When I turned 17, she vanished. Police found nothing. Aunt said she’d run away from responsibility. Years later, on my wedding day, a text from
  an unknown number stopped me cold. It read, “I’m so happy for you, my dear girl! You’re all grown up now! I missed you, we‘ll talk soon.” I was stunned, tried to call that number immediately, some man picked up and said my mom was at his place.
  
  I found out the address and drove there. When I entered the house, a grumpy man met me at the door and led me silently to a room where my mom was lying on the bed. She was thin and pale, it was obvious something was wrong with her health. She asked me to listen to her and to my shock, she revealed that she did run away that day, but not from responsibility, like my aunt always said, but from causing us a lot of trouble.
  
  She had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and her state was worsening every day, so she decided to vanish and live at her old friend’s house all this time to save us, her kids, from the necessity to care for her, sacrificing our own lives and youth. She knew her sister would take us in, and she didn’t mind our aunt telling us nasty things about her. All she wanted for us was to be happy and free. This was the biggest sacrifice I could even imagine. My mom now lives with me and my husband and I care for her, giving her all my love and attention, paying her back with what she has been giving me all my life. — Lana D., Bright Side reader

• About 10 years after my mom passed, it was around Mother’s Day and everyone was posting pictures of their mother’s on Facebook. As my mom passed before cell phone pics were really a thing, I didn’t have any on my phone and I posted on FB that I was sad that I didn’t have any photos of my mom to post. I don’t know why I didn’t think to take a picture of a picture but, regardless, both my aunt and former neighbor had posted pictures of my mom.
  
  Fast forward about a week or so, and an older gentleman, Neil, who would deliver products to my office every week came up to my desk and said he wanted me to have something. When I looked, he had taken one of the photos of my mom that was posted to FB and made a beautiful magnet. I started crying right there and then because it was just so thoughtful of him and such a surprise.
  © NerdySmurf / Reddit

• When my Mother died, a knock came on the door. One of her client’s sons gave me an envelope of money. I was confused. He explained that when his mother had died, they were low on money. My mom helped pay for their airfare to get her kids home. She never told us about it. She wasn’t a rich woman. That’s when I knew the world had lost someone great. © Unknown author / Reddit

• My grandma passed away recently, and it hit me hard — she’d always been more of a mom to me than my actual mom. She wasn’t poor either; grandpa had left her a solid estate and savings. When the lawyer read her will, all the grandkids got something. Me? Just grandpa’s old watch. Worthless money-wise, but priceless to me. I wore it everywhere.
  
  About a year later, my friend (an antique specialist) spotted a tiny engraving on the watch: a phone number with the name “Erick.” I called it. Turns out Erick Schwimmer was a lawyer and close friend of my grandpa. He handed me grandpa’s real will.
  
  Grandma and grandpa had designed a plan: everyone else got small inheritances to avoid drama, while the real estate and savings were left to whoever found Erick through the watch. That person was me. Now I quietly manage the inheritance — and no one in my family knows.
  — Nicole Ch., Bright Side reader

Forget flexing muscles or flashing wealth, as real influence shows up in kindness. These stories prove that compassion can disarm pride, shift perspectives, and win battles no ego ever could. True strength doesn’t shout; it quietly changes everything.