14 Moments That Prove Compassion Can Heal Hearts and Create Real Happiness

Our baby was 3 weeks old. I hadn’t slept in days. Every night, my husband locked himself in a room while I sobbed through feedings alone. This time, I spied on him and heard a woman giggle. I kicked the door open, shaking. I wasn’t ready for what I saw.
He was sitting on the floor. Laptop open, squinting at the screen, holding yarn like he had no idea what he was doing. He jumped when I came in. On the screen was some crochet tutorial—some woman’s voice, that’s where the giggle came from. And then I saw what was next to it. A photo. It took me a second, but I recognized it. A weighted lap blanket. The exact kind I had mentioned once, offhand, during my third trimester, when I was talking to my sister about my anxiety and how much I wished I had one. He never said anything about it. Never brought it up again. He just... started teaching himself how to make one. Quietly. Every night. Trying, in his own awkward way, to make things a little easier for me.

I didn’t have a happy childhood. Left home the day of my high school graduation... packed up my car, went to the high school, never went home. I was homeless, living in my car and on random friends’ couches, working as a dishwasher at a restaurant. I’d hide food that came back to the kitchen untouched, so I had food the next day. The chef caught me one day. Pulls me outside in the alley where we took breaks. I figured I was fired. Instead, he asks me what’s going on. Gives me fresh food to take home (he said it’s dangerous doing it the way I was). Then, when the weather started getting cold, he and his wife cleaned out part of the space in the room above their garage and let me live there for free. He had no reason to be nice to me, and he was. At work, he was a raving lunatic, though in a good, crazy chef kind of way.... but under that, he was a human gem.

I got fired from a string of jobs as a teen/young adult for things like showing up late or using my employee discount for friends. After a lot of searching, I finally got a new job, and of course, it was in the same mall as some of the other places. I was honest with my boss in my interview about my job history, and she hired me on the spot. She told me she saw potential in me and wanted to give me a chance.
The same boss also pushed me to pursue my degree, made sure I could work around my classes, and had a send-off party for me when I got a job in my field.

Was going through a very rough patch in my marriage. We had separated and had no chance of getting back together. My ex-wife was/is a clinical narcissist. I had been doing everything around the house. All the mommy chores and daddy chores, cooking and cleaning for 14 years. I was a physical and emotional wreck. Nothing I did was ever enough. A friend invited me over for dinner. She told me to sit and watch television and relax. She cooked and then served me dinner. A simple act of putting food on a plate and bringing it to me. I absolutely could not comprehend what had happened. I didn’t know what to say. I almost cried. Someone had done something to take care of me, which had not happened in a very long time.

I lost my mother when I was 6 years old. She was usually really ill and was never there anyway.
I was still sitting alone without friends and really lonely when I was in grade 4. I was suffering through major depression and anxiety, and spent a lot of my time in the same spot. I was really intelligent back then and was always really interested in my classes, as I had really nothing else in my life left that made me feel somewhat useful.
I used to, and still do, enjoy learning other languages, and the teacher who taught us Chinese that year was a really misunderstood woman. She always seemed strict to others around her, and most didn’t like her. She was amazing in my mind, and I could tell she was just frustrated by kids not wanting to listen.
One day, during recess, she came up to me and sat beside me. She was really kind and understanding. I told her about how my mother died, and how I had no friends in school, and that I was really usually scared to speak to other kids and sometimes felt really lonely. I told her basically my life story, as she was one of those people that you could just open up to, despite her strict demeanour. And she sat there and listened carefully. She then began to speak to me as well, saying how her mother had died when she was 15, and she knew how hard it was and how much she struggled through life afterwards. She opened up and seemed to be like an actual friend.
From that day until the end of grade 5, she would always come out and sit with me in my spot and just speak to me, help me out, and was always so proud of me, in a motherly kind of way. She taught me origami, was always there if I needed something, and was just AMAZING. I really calmed down a lot. I had basically grown out of my anxious and depressed pit of suffering. She had taught me some social skills and was willing to always help me with trying to make friends, speaking to others, and stuff like that. I really started to see a reason to live, I started to be a lot more comfortable and happy, all because she was so amazing and had wanted to hear my story and talk to me. She had seen someone in distress, and turned my view of life into one worth living.
However, all good things have to come to an end eventually. At the end of grade 5, she had to move to another school and teach there, as my school kind of fired her for some reason I don’t know. The day she told me this was a day I had felt sad all over again, and I just felt like life was going to go back to how it used to be. However, she had told me that she wanted me to keep fighting, she wanted me to keep practicing my skills, and become more confident and happy with my life. She reminded me of all the stuff she had done with me and how she would not let me put that to waste. I honestly thought I was never going to see her ever again. I became depressed all over again for about a week. Once I got over the main stages where I really cried a lot, I took her words and used them.
I kept going and even made a friend when I was in grade 6. I had continued what she had taught me, and I had kept on with my life. I made myself remember what she had taught, and I was motivated.
It was a large surprise to me that when I started high school, she had actually begun working at the high school I go to. I was so happy to see her; however, on the second day of grade 7, in high school, I had seen a kid who was sitting alone and kind of reminded me of how lonely I felt in primary school.
I became friends with that kid, and I now have a large friend group. I am much happier despite the fact that I still occasionally have my down times. Now, whenever I pass by the teacher who had changed my life, I always give her a smile, and we say our “hello” before we go our own ways. I still speak sometimes with her, and she has told me how proud she is of me and what I’ve gotten through.
She is basically the person I aspire to be like when I grow up.

In fifth grade, my backpack was stolen from my dad’s car. My binder had all my school supplies in it, and a couple of personally valuable things like some stories I had been working on. Once my dad went outside and saw that the window was shattered, he came and woke me up to tell me that his car had been broken into and my backpack had been stolen. I was sobbing for almost an hour. Ended up going to school empty-handed. My 5th-grade teacher, Mrs. Taylor, was kind and understanding. She gave me an extra binder that she had in storage. To help personalize it, she got out a piece of paper and started writing my first and middle name in a bubble font (which she was talented at). She then gave it to me and told me to color it in.
Later that day, Mrs. Taylor got a call from the office and looked over to me and said, “A miracle has happened! Somebody found your binder!” So I ran down to the office and grabbed my binder. I opened it and saw all my stuff from my backpack crammed into it, including an envelope. On the envelope, it was written, “Sorry your stuff was stolen. Glad you got it back. Keep working hard in school!” and inside the envelope, there was $20 dollars to replace things. I’ve always thought it’s amazing that someone took time out of their day to return my binder to my school. Some people might have a corrupt motivation, but other people can be kind sometimes! I will never forget this story.

The day I found out my father’s cancer was no longer in remission, but now, unfortunately, terminal, and only had a few months to live. To say I was a walking zombie was an understatement. My fiancé (now husband) at the time and I went to a sub shop for dinner before heading to the hospital, and I was barely functioning and holding it together. My fiancé told me to go sit down, and he’d pay for the meal. The young gentleman making our subs had noticed something was really off with me and quietly asked him if I was OK. After my now husband told him what was wrong with me, the young man refused all payment. He just pushed the subs towards him and walked away from the cash register. I wouldn’t have known about this story until much later. After I found out, I went back there asking about the guy to say thank you. The guy I spoke with said, “We actually have a few guys around here like that.” I just couldn’t hold back the tears, and just couldn’t stop saying thank you.

I spent 9 months knitting a baby blanket for my first grandchild. When I handed it to my daughter-in-law at the hospital, she looked at it and dropped it into the trash. “We don’t need your stuff,” she said. “You’re not going to buy your way into this baby’s life.”
My son said nothing. I left. I didn’t meet my granddaughter for 11 weeks. Then one night at 2 a.m., my phone rang. My daughter-in-law was sobbing so hard I could barely understand her. The baby had colic. My son was on a work trip. She hadn’t slept in four days. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” she said. “I don’t know why I called you.”
I drove forty minutes in my pajamas. When I walked in, the apartment was in chaos. Bottles everywhere, laundry piled on every surface. She was sitting on the kitchen floor holding the baby, just rocking.
I took the baby, walked slow circles around the living room, and hummed the same song I used to sing to my son. The baby was soon asleep. When I looked up, my daughter-in-law was standing in the doorway holding the yellow blanket. She’d taken it from my hands that day at the hospital. It had been in the baby’s crib the entire time.
“It’s the only thing that makes her stop fussing,” she whispered. “I’m sorry. I was so afraid you’d try to replace my mom. She died in March. I never got to tell her she was going to be a grandmother.”
I held that girl on the kitchen floor until the sun came up. Not as a mother-in-law. As the closest thing she had left.

My second day back at work after having my one and only baby, I ended up helping a woman with a small baby of her own. She was struggling with her pram, and I commented on how bulky and unforgiving they were. She agreed, and we joked about strollers while I finished checking her out.
The next day, I came in to work my shift, and there was an envelope on my desk. In it was the sweetest note, telling me how brave I was for keeping it together, that it gets better with time, and how much being a Mom always makes up for all the bad stuff. There was also a Starbucks gift card. It took me a couple of hours, but I finally figured out that it was the woman with the pram who had left it for me. I cried when I read it and again when I realized who it was from. She and I had never spoken before, and she welcomed me to motherhood more kindly than anyone else in my life ever did.
I did end up getting her address from our system and sending a thank-you card. I also gave the Starbucks card to my boss’s wife, who was 6 months pregnant at the time, since I knew I would never use it. It was one of the kindest things anyone has ever done for me.

When I worked at Wal-Mart, I had to shovel snow to make a pathway for customers. My shoes were really beat up, but I had a nearly comical shoe size, so I just learned to deal with it. Randomly, a guy asked what size shoe I wore. I’ve heard this question a million times before, so I gave it to him and went about my day. Half an hour later, he came back with a really nice pair of shoes in my size. Since I was on the clock, I couldn’t accept the shoes since that wouldn’t look too well on the store’s part, so he went inside and raised a fuss until the managers gave him the ok. These are the nicest shoes I have EVER owned, and looking at them still gives me the warm and fuzzies inside. I hope that guy is doing ok, and I hope he knows he helped me out in a way I didn’t even know I needed.

I was waiting for the bus on a cold morning to head to campus for class. The bus stop was right in front of a Starbucks, and there was a homeless man in the middle of the street asking for change. Another student came and got in line for the bus (because mornings are so busy, you would like to get a spot on the bus). He stood there for a bit and then suddenly went into the Starbucks, giving up his spot. About 5 mins later, he comes out with a coffee and a bagel and runs to the homeless man and gives him the coffee and bagel, with nothing for himself. This guy did this random act of kindness despite probably having to wait for another bus because he gave up his spot, also the potential to be late for class, and the potential to miss buses in general (sometimes 2 came at the same time and wouldn’t come for a while after). He was completely selfless! Loved that so much.

I’m a NICU nurse. A woman came in at 26 weeks—early labor, nothing we could do to stop it. The baby was born at one pound, eleven ounces. On a ventilator right away. She kept asking me if her baby was going to die. I couldn’t tell her he wouldn’t.
Her husband never came. “He said he didn’t sign up for a broken kid.” She said it flat. No tears.
She sat next to that incubator for 61 days. The hospital social worker found out she’d been sleeping in her car in the parking lot.
I wasn’t supposed to do what I did. I gave her the key to the staff break room. Told her she could sleep on the couch and use the microwave. My supervisor would have written me up. I didn’t care.
On day 70, the baby opened his eyes and followed his mother’s voice for the first time. She made a sound I’ve never heard from another person. Not really a laugh, not really a cry, something else entirely.
When she carried him out, she stopped at my station and said, “I have to tell you something.” I figured she was going to say thanks.
She said, “My husband called last week. He said he wants to come back. He said he’s ready now.” She paused. “I told him no. And it was the easiest decision I’ve ever made. Because all this time, strangers fought harder for him than his own father did. You gave me a couch. The respiratory therapist learned his name on day two. The janitor left a stuffed animal by the incubator. I’m not going back to someone who walked away. My son already knows what it looks like when people show up.”

Back in 2006, I was working retail and had just had a cold. I’d been cleared to go back to work by my GP, but I still had a nasty-sounding cough that wouldn’t give up.
A little old man came in and was browsing when I started coughing, and he asked if I was ok. I said yes and reassured him that my GP had said I was no longer contagious, just the cough was lingering. I helped him pick out a few pieces of costume jewellery for his granddaughters, he bought them and left, then came back about 10 minutes later with a bottle of cough syrup for me. He’d gone to the nearby pharmacy and bought it for me. He has no idea how much I appreciated that, and I actually teared up at his kindness because I was so broke I’d had to muscle through the whole cold without anything to help with the symptoms.