Let's spread kindness around

A good story that I received in the email:

One day a man saw an old lady, stranded on the side of the road. So he pulled up in front of her Mercedes & got out. His Pontiac was still sputtering as he approached her.

Even with the smile on his face, she was worried. No one had stopped to help for the last hour or so. Was he going to hurt her? He didn't look safe; he looked poor and hungry.

He could see that she was frightened, standing out there in the cold. He said, "I'm here to help you, madam. Why don't you wait in the car where it's warm? By the way, my name is Bryan Anderson."

Well, all she had was a flat tire, but for an old lady, that was bad enough. Bryan crawled under the car looking for a place to put the jack, skinning his knuckles a time or two. Soon he was able to change the tire.

As he was tightening up the lug nuts, she rolled down the window and told him that she was from St. Louis and was only just passing through. She thanked him for coming to her aid.

Bryan just smiled as he closed her trunk. The lady asked how much she owed him. Bryan never thought twice about being paid. This was not a job to him. This was helping someone in need, and God knows there were plenty, who had given him a hand in the past. He had lived his whole life that way, and it never occurred to him to act any other way.

"If you really want to pay me back, the next time you see someone who needs help, you can give that person the assistance s/he needs, and think of me," Bryan replied. He waited until she started her car and drove off.

A few miles down the road the old lady saw a small cafe. She went in to grab a bite to eat. It was a dingy looking restaurant. The waitress came over and brought a clean towel to wipe her wet hair. She had a sweet smile, one that even being on her feet for the whole day couldn't erase. The lady noticed the waitress was nearly eight months pregnant, but she never let the strain and aches change her attitude. The old lady wondered how someone who had so little could be so giving to a stranger. Then she remembered Bryan.

After the lady finished her meal, she paid with a hundred dollar bill. The waitress quickly went to get change for her hundred dollar bill, but the old lady was gone by the time she came back. She noticed a note written on the napkin: "You don't owe me anything. Somebody once helped me out, the way I'm helping you. If you really want to pay me back, here is what you do: Do not let this chain of love end with you."

Under the napkin were four more $100 bills.

That night when the waitress got home from work and climbed into bed, she was thinking about the money and what the lady had written. How could the lady have known how much she and her husband needed it? With the baby due next month, it was going to be hard....

She knew how worried her husband was, and as he lay sleeping next to her, she gave him a soft kiss and whispered soft and low, "Everything's going to be all right. I love you, Bryan Anderson."