BY NANCY KIDD

No need to judge others or to compare myself to anyone else. All I need to do is walk my own path and be ready to take the hand of those I encounter and to walk a bit with them.

Sometimes that togetherness happens because I need a little support, so I work on asking for help and continue learning to accept it more graciously. Other times we walk together because I am there to assist someone else on their journey.

Just before Easter, my husband and I drove several hundred miles to visit our older son. At a rest area, I entered the stall just inside the door and immediately heard two women talking at the far end of the ladies’ room.

Although I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, I couldn’t help overhearing tidbits of their conversation.

The voice of a woman was calling to “Mama.” Someone struggling and needing help. I heard things like, “I just shouldn’t leave the house any more.” “I can’t be going anywhere because I can’t do this.” The conversation between the mother and daughter continued, and I heard one say maybe they could get someone to help.

My thoughts instantly turned to my own mother.

Although she’s been gone for more than two years—the effects of her dementia make it seem much longer—many of us still deeply feel her essence. She was a selfless woman of extraordinary kindness, one who seemed to always put the needs of others before her own. Friends and family used to remark that, despite her own large brood of six children, whenever extra folks visited, she had a way of making every person feel they were special. In that instant, I thought of her gentle, nurturing manner. Like how she would tenderly rock any baby she managed to get her hands on or how she would just as compassionately bathe and care for seriously ill adults.

At that point, I knew I would try to do what she would have done.

I finished using the restroom and was washing my hands as I heard one of the women call out, “Ma’am, can you help me?”

Other women would be coming in soon, but at that very moment, I was the only other person in that typical, stark restroom with its concrete block walls and row of stainless steel-doored stalls. I went to the door of the handicapped stall, and I offered my assistance. Inside I found a small, elderly woman hunched over her walker. She was trying to help her daughter, a larger woman seated in a wheelchair.

The daughter told me she had Parkinson’s disease and that her body was stiff from riding so long.

“How can I help you?” I asked.

As she told me what to do, I managed to help her stand. I helped her turn around, but she was unable to take care of her own toileting business.

What should I do? What would I want someone to do for me if I were in this situation?

I felt my mother’s sweet spirit guided me because right away, for once, I started doing more than thinking.

I asked if I could help by pulling down her pants, and that is what she needed me to do. After I helped her ease and adjust onto the toilet, I left the stall to give her and her mother some privacy. By then, other women had entered the restroom, so I shut the door and stood guard—all to help her feel as much dignity as she could.

After a bit, I heard the mother trying to tend to her daughter. It was not going well. “Do you need me to help?” I asked. The mother said she was trying, but she couldn’t manage it.

So, I reentered the stall to help the woman again. Eventually, we got her clothes readjusted and her body situated once again in the wheelchair. The mother exited with her walker, and the woman and I washed our hands before I pushed her outside.

I asked her about her disease. She told me she had been living with it for over 40 years.

That day she was on her way to an appointment with her doctor. I’m not sure how far they had driven, but they were from another state, and they still had more driving to do.

Outwardly, I tried to remain cheerful and positive while we talked. Inside, a lump occupied my throat, and my eyes began to sting. I struggled to hold back the tears as I realized the insurmountable challenges this woman had faced for such a long time. She had witnessed her body’s gradual deterioration. She had faced the diagnosis of a progressive disease known to take her from tremors to impaired balance, to rigid muscles and slowed movement, and eventually to the inability walk. At this stage, she was dealing with her loss of independence and, sometimes, with humiliating circumstances that put her at the mercy of strangers like me.

How did one muster the courage to keep going?

She repeatedly referred to me as her angel.

“There are two blessings for me this Easter,” she claimed. I tried to deflect the remarks because they made me uncomfortable. I was not worthy of all that praise.

A man waited right outside the restroom door. I had smiled at and said “Hello” to him on my way inside. He was, I learned as the woman introduced us, her husband. I passed the wheelchair to him, and as I turned to go, she asked me for a hug.

Of course! It was the perfect ending to this intimate, human moment we had just shared!

I had left my husband and granddog outside for what I’d promised to be a quick stop. He told me he had begun to worry when I didn’t return for nearly a half hour. Then, when he saw the woman in the wheelchair, he said he felt he knew what had transpired.

He rushed to offer assistance to the man and his wife as they got back into their truck.

We watched them drive away before returning to our own car to begin the last leg of our journey. Lively music on the car stereo did little to cheer us. Nor did the spring beauty of the countryside. We covered many miles before the heaving in my chest and the flow of tears subsided.

I continued replaying our encounter and reflecting on the stark reminder of how very, very difficult life is for so many people—overwhelming situations they must face on a daily basis.

And yet, despite the sadness, my husband and I both felt humble and incredibly grateful for this sacred gift we had just received, a transcendent moment of oneness shared with a stranger.

It was, I truly believe, the result of merely being open to walking alongside another.

As our journey continued, my thoughts again drifted back to my mom. I recalled how she had so often reached out to others just to comfort and be with them. And, for the umpteenth time, I felt grateful for the example of her life and for the ways she still manages to guide us all.