I was having lunch at Zaxby’s when I overheard a young man laughing about an older man in the bathroom. He was saying that the man couldn’t get off the toilet. Curious, I walked in to check on the man and could hear him crying. I asked if he was okay, and he told me his legs were too weak to stand up and that he had left his cane by the door.
I asked him to unlock the door and helped him get up. I pulled his pants up for him. The man had a Vietnam veteran hat on, and he hugged me and said, “I’m 69 years old, and this is the most embarrassing moment of my life,” with tears in his eyes.
I shook his hand, thanked him for his service, and walked him out to the lobby. Then I made the young man apologize to the older man.
The moral of the story is this: getting older happens to all of us, but there’s no reason to be rude or unkind to a stranger.
Credit: Marcus Pass