What’s a moment when a stranger completely restored your faith in people?
I started school when I was four. I was the firstborn in my family and hadn’t been to preschool. One day I was simply enrolled at the local school. I didn’t really understand what was happening to me.
All my friends in our street were about six months younger, so they stayed home while I went off to school. I was a shy and sensitive child and had no idea how to make new friends. Until then, friendship had simply meant the kids I had grown up with.
So at recess and lunch I wandered around the playground trying to look busy. I wasn’t fooling anyone. Before long, a group of children surrounded me and started bullying me. I was frightened and had no idea what to do.
Then another boy appeared. He was only about a year older than me, but to a frightened four-year-old that was significant. He told them to leave me alone. And they did.
It still took me a long time to settle into school—probably a year—but I never forgot what that boy had done. He didn’t have to intervene. He simply saw someone vulnerable and decided to help.
I never forgot his name. Many years later I looked him up on Facebook and we became friends. I discovered that he had gone on to become a teacher and had been teaching at the same school for twenty years.
When I told him what he had done for me, he couldn’t remember it. I could. That may be the most remarkable part of the story. Something that barely registered in his memory became one of my earliest lessons in what a decent person looks like.
Long before he became a teacher, he noticed a child wandering alone in the playground. He saw what others were doing. And he stepped in.
We rarely know which of our actions people will remember. Sometimes the things that matter most to another person are things we ourselves have completely forgotten.
He didn’t restore my faith in people. At four years old, he helped form it.
The Afterword 
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