This past summer I traveled up north to Leelanau, Michigan, with my best friend, Mary, and her family. Mary’s family is basically a second family to me because we have known each other since Kindergarten. Her family goes up every year for a family vacation, but this was my first time going up with them because her older sister could not come this year. While we were up there, we traveled around to several tourist places. One of the places we went was Sleeping Bear Dunes. I have been to this place several times before, but it constantly takes my breath away because of its beauty.
At the Sleeping Bear Dunes there is a hill that leads straight to Lake Michigan. This hill is so steep that from the top it looks more like a cliff than a hill. Mary, all five of her brothers, and I ran down the hill in less than a minute trying to race each other to the bottom. As you go down this hill, your momentum only goes up until you get to the bottom and are forced to stop unless you want to end up in the middle of Lake Michigan. We spent a few minutes at the bottom of the hill to look around, take pictures, and to catch our breaths. Then we turned around and looked at the climb that we were about to take on.
Three of Mary’s brothers were already on their way up the hill when she and I started our twenty minute climb. Mary started to get ahead of me because I slowed down to try to count how many steps it would take me to get to the top of the hill. As I reached two hundred steps looked behind me only to realize that I was only about half way up. This climb became very challenging because of the steepness of the hill and the shifting of the sand every step. As | started to drip sweat, I was reaching the top and felt pretty accomplished. I was taking a break every fifty to sixty steps to atch my breath for a moment, and was determined not to lose count of my steps. When I became closer to the top, I started to hear a little voice calling for a mother to stop and wait. I picked my hanging head up and saw a boy no older than six years old on his hands and knees crawling up the sandy hill. He was calling towards his mom, in a distressed voice worrying about being left behind, who was with her husband and three other young children. Obviously, with three other children the parents, could not make the trip back down and leave their other kids, so I had a decision.
I could either keep counting my steps and pass by the kid with no thought, or I could help him get back to his parents. At this moment, one memory from my childhood popped into my mind. When I was about five, my family and I went to Disney World for a vacation. I was watching a street performance in one of the parks and got separated from my family. I realized that my family was nowhere in sight once the performance ended. A women noticed I was lost and alone and sat on a bench with me until my parents came back. This event could have sparked my compassion for kids.
Regardless, I feel the need to help whenever I see a child in need. So, I made my decision to help the young boy. I climbed up next to him and stuck my hand out to give him assistance. He just looked at me for a second and then back to my hand. His face seemed hesitant at first, so | smiled at him reassuringly. While this was all happening! imagine him thinking about if I was trustworthy or scary, but I think the main thing on his mind was probably trying to get back to his family and not get left behind. At that moment he smiled back, grabbed my hand, and began to talk to me as we climbed up.
He told me that his family was up their waiting for him. He also told me what he liked to do in his free time and a little about himself. He kept saying how hard the climb was and how he was struggling. I tried not to show that I was struggling myself, but instead I kept saying that we were super close and that we could not quit because of how far we have made it. As we climbed he would look up at me and smile while we talked which kept me going and helped me encourage him. We reached his family shortly after, both the parents and the boy smiled and thanked me for helping him.
I returned to my friend’s family out of breath, and her mom smiled and told me that I did a very kind thing. I did not help the boy out expecting to get praise from others, but to just to give a helping hand where one was needed. Any person’s trust is delicate, it takes a second to earn it and even less time to lose it. A child’s trust is even more delicate because it can shape the way he or she trusts people for the rest of his or her life. Although this situation probably would not destroy the boy’s trust, and he most likely forgot about the whole interaction as the day went on, it stays in my mind and taught me something.
The moment his small hand grabbed mine something changed in me. This six year old taught me to trust people more, even strangers. This situation is why adults should pay attention to kids more often and learn from them. Adults should not only teach, but learn as well. The trust, fearlessness, creativity and free living approach to life kids have is something I look up to. Although in this story it seems like I am the one doing the good deed and helping out a person in need, I personally think the boy retaught me something that I struggle with.
Trusting strangers seems harder more recently because of all the issues that have occurred in the past years. The reason we should learn from kids is that they view everyone as equals, no matter the way the person acts, looks, or his or her religion, until they are taught differently. Everyone has something to teach and something to learn in each day they encounter. There are numerous opportunities that each individual is given every single day to do a random act of kindness for others, but it’s up to the individual to act upon those opportunities.
