At night in the pouring rain, Tawny Nelson found herself stranded with a broken down car, her four daughters crying in the back. She sought help, but countless people just passed by without acknowledging her.
The single mother stated that life had been rough since her partner left. She only drove the car when it was absolutely necessary because it was in bad shape, and her cellphone was disconnected.
They desperately needed groceries, so she drove to the store, but one of the girls left a light on in the car and the battery was completely drained.
“I must have asked more than twenty people in the course of two hours for a jump,” she told Frank Somerville, who posted the story on his Facebook page. “They all ignored me. Not even a no. [They] just acted like I didn’t exist.”
Her newborn was screaming, her two-year-old crying because she was hungry, and her nine-year-old trying to help, and Tawny began breaking down also.
“I was bawling and felt like the worst Mom ever,” she said.
A 74-year-old man with a bad limp made his way to her car and knocked on the window. He gave her a plate of food and bottles of water before letting her know that a tow truck was on the way. He told her that his wife would drive them home.
The next day, he showed up at her house with a mechanic in tow and they made multiple repairs to her car.
She asked the mechanic if they could come up with a payment plan, but he told her that the man had already taken care the bill.
She wrote: “He said that the only payment the older man wanted was for me to never give up and keep being an amazing mom. I’ve never cried so hard in my life. Things had been absolutely awful, more so than I care to explain, and without knowing us or our situation this kind man helped us in ways he will never know.”
Tawny stated that while she knows she may never be able to repay the man – who wouldn’t even accept a hug – she hopes to help someone else the way he helped her.
