Hospitable Strangers

Costa Brava, Spain

​Helpless, I laid on the road between two stopped cars, body still braced in fear of further impact. Was my back broken? I couldn't tell, all I knew was that it was frozen, just like the rest of me, stunned by the vehicle that swept me off my bicycle and onto the hood of their car, and now this hard ground I desperately grasped. The sound of breaking metal and plastic resounded behind me as more cars collided. I opened my eyes when the loud noises quieted and wept. I was alive, thankfully, but never did I feel more alone.

As I laid vulnerable at the center of the accident that stopped the flow of traffic on a busy street just outside of Toronto, I heard doors closing and footsteps running towards me. “Oh my gosh, are you okay?” a voice from a crowd of strangers circling around me sounded like an echo in a tunnel amid the blurriness of the moment. “Let’s get you out of the road,” a witness of the accident said to me. A small army of concerned citizens picked me up off the ground, and I carefully braced for that first step, waiting to see if my back would hold firm or if it would crumble into a million shattered pieces with the slightest pressure. Out of the corner of my eye I saw three cars connected, first the one that swiped the two wheels from beneath me, and the two behind it that despite the piercing screech of their brakes, were unable to avoid collision.
 
Sirens sounded in the distance, I was on the sidewalk sitting down when the clamor around me faded to a numbing ring in my ear and the light entering my eyes became a blinding beam. When it all became too much, the world around me faded into a blurry fog as I closed my eyes, fell to the concrete and lost all sense of consciousness.
 
This was my first ever bike trip. I was 22 years old the summer of 2011 when I started working for a bike touring organization designed for teenagers called Teen Treks. We had just finished leadership training and with a few days to spare before the first trip I would guide that summer, I decided to take a two-day bike trip from the Buffalo headquarters to Toronto. What I thought would happen on the trek is that I would get a small taste test of biking while carrying a wardrobe, kitchen and tool shop in my saddlebags, but what I got instead was a life-altering discovery about the nature of humanity.
 
I woke up to medics, police, and crowds of other passersby’s surrounding me. Off to the side, someone was investigating scratches and damage to my bicycle. A hand reached in front of me and offered a cold Gatorade bottle. There was ice on my forehead, and my right knee was bandaged up. I didn’t know any of these people, but when the medic determined I was mostly in shock and experiencing a badly bruised back and some scratches, he asked if there was someone I could stay with for the night. Buffalo was a two-days ride back, my family down in Texas was closer to the Mexican border than Canada, and my college friends were either taking summer classes back in Tennessee or were scattered around the country working their own summer job. My answer to the paramedic was a very simple, “No.”
 
“We can take her home,” a woman who I had seen standing by throughout the blurred afternoon spoke up. Her husband walked over, the guy who had been fastidiously studying my bike, he stood tall next to her as if to show his agreement to the uncannily generous proposal.
 
I had no reason to say no, even if my body wasn’t broken, I needed time to let the shock wear off before getting back on my bicycle, plus I had no idea what shape my bike was even in. On top of that, the way I had been scooped up in kindness of strangers during my time of need gave me confidence to go home with people who have shown me no other intention other than wanting to help.
 
As I sat in their quiet, calm home, resting on a comfortable couch while eating a homemade bowl of spaghetti, Brian, the man tending to my bike street-side, was at it again, this time downstairs in his tool shop, replacing broken spokes and straightening the bent fork of my bicycle. Luckily that was the only collateral damage to my mode of transportation, and luckily Brian was a biker himself and was knowledgeable at mechanics.
 
It occurred to me while safe in a stranger’s home that just hours ago I felt so isolated in my state of desperation. It’s like when you move away for college and get sick for the first time, there is no one there to make you soup or put a cold towel on your forehead and that new feeling of being sick while on your own feels very lonely. This was my first solo excursion, though small, it was a big feeling to be hit by a car while being hours away from anyone familiar. But in this strange house, I felt at home. While it wasn’t soup, the comfort of warm spaghetti was the same. While they weren’t my family, their care and attention in my time of need was almost the definition of what family does for each other.
 
I don’t know if I would have learned to lean on people completely unfamiliar to me if I hadn’t been in such a desperate situation. Feeling isolated and scared, all I wanted was to feel safe and cared for, and I couldn’t run home for that. But if weren’t for my time of helplessness to point me into the arms of people I knew nothing about, I never would have discovered the surprising gift of a hospitable stranger.