Wonderful Story
Many of you may have heard by now of the wonderful story involving 3 softball players in a playoff game. One woman hit her first ever home run only to seriously injure her knee at first base leaving her unable to finishing running the bases. Her teammates were not allowed to help her and substituing a pinch runner would have meant that her home-run would have been relegated to a 2 run single (two of her teammates were on base when she hit her home run). At that point, 2 members of the OPPOSING team asked the umpire if they could help her "run" the bases. He indicated that there were no rules prohibiting that so the two opposing players gingerly lifted their injured opponent, asked her which leg was hurt and carfully carried her to each base allowing her to touch the base with her uninjured leg. When they reached home, the two players made sure that the injured woman's teammates could carry her and unobtrusively went back to their own team. The kicker...that run contributed to the INJURED player's team willing the game, preventing the opposing team from advancing in the playoffs.
When asked about the event, the women simply said that she hit the ball, deserved the home run, and that it was the right thing to do. They didn't know that the injured player was a senior and had never hit a home run in her entire playing career.
I think this is a wonderfully uplifting example of what is possible when we are not overly comsumed by our own "stuff". In that moment, it would seem that these women simply saw an injured individual who would otherwise be unable to accomplish something important to her without the right kind of assistance. It would seem that these two women did not hesitate in knowing what the right thing was to do, and that they did not hesitate to do it.
It is impossible to know what it was in these two women that "allowed" them such an act of selflessness. My hope is not that we all "learn" from their actions necessarily, but that we can take in, accept and truly feel the feelings that such a story evokes. I think when we are able to that, we may be able to commit many not-so-random acts of kindness - for ourselves included. We will be capable of so much more than we may think possible.
