Tom’s latest story called ‘Stranded’ in Chicken Soup for the Soul: Angels Among Us

Stranded

Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.
~Mother Teresa

My mind started wandering. I had been driving on I-79 North in our newly
acquired used Jeep Cherokee with my pregnant wife through the mountains of West
Virginia for nearly two hours. No radio. No cell phone service. No stop lights. No rest
areas. No vehicles on the road other than ours. The only noise we heard was the slow
drone of the wiper blades moving back and forth, reminding me of the metronome my
fifth grade piano instructor used to keep me on tempo. The slushy mix of snow, rain, and
sleet started picking up, making it harder and harder to focus on the seemingly endless
road before us.

It was the night before Christmas Eve and we were making the long trek home to
rural Pennsylvania. I was attending graduate school in Kentucky and our winter break
had finally arrived. My wife and I had to work earlier in the day so we got off to a later
start than we would have liked — forcing us to drive in utter darkness the entire trip home.
We didn’t really mind the drive though, knowing that in eight hours we would be
enjoying eggnog in front of a warm fireplace with our family.
BOOM!!!

“Did you hear that?” I asked my wife.

“Yes. What happened?”

“I must have hit something,” I said.

I pulled the vehicle off to the side of the road to check out the damage. I grabbed
the flashlight from under my seat.

“We got a flat!” I yelled. “I’m going to put on the doughnut.”

One by one I grabbed our Christmas presents, placing them on the sloppy ground.
I finally made it the bottom of the pile, grabbing the jack, our only source of hope on this
wintry night. “Great, just our luck, it’s broken! The car dealer sold us a vehicle with a broken
jack! Now what?” One by one I placed the saturated Christmas gifts back into the vehicle, replaying
in my head how I could have made such a mistake. I returned to my seat and started
wondering what our next move might be. We took a moment to assess the situation and
offer up a quick prayer.

We laid out our options:
Option 1 — It looked like there was a house way off in the distance. I could ring
their doorbell.
Option 2 — The next exit was fifteen miles. I could walk to the exit and my wife
could stay in the car until I returned.
Option 3 — We could wait it out in the warmth of our car until the gas ran out —
hoping that another vehicle would stop and perform a modern-day Good Samaritan deed
on our behalf (even though we hadn’t seen another car on the road for nearly two hours).
Neither one of us liked options one or two, considering the fact that we were in the
middle of nowhere in West Virginia — so we decided on option three.

I reclined in my seat, not expecting to see another vehicle for several hours, if at
all. I shut off the wiper blades so I could have a normal conversation with my wife. But
before I uttered the first sentence, I heard what sounded like sirens. I looked in the
rearview mirror and shouted as if I had just won the lottery: “A police car!”

The policeman pulled alongside our vehicle, asking us how he could be of
service, telling us that his name was Officer Anderson. I told him about the flat tire and
that we didn’t have a working jack or cell phone service. Without hesitation, Officer
Anderson hopped out of his vehicle, grabbed the jack from his car, plopped down on the
soggy grass, and started changing the tire. He then told us to stay inside where it was
warm while he found us a mechanic. He eventually found us one, but it was forty-five
miles away. He told us that he would follow behind us until we made it to our
destination. So for the next hour and half, Officer Anderson followed behind our vehicle,
even though it was way out of his jurisdiction.

When we finally arrived at our exit, Officer Anderson told us to follow him to the
mechanic and that he would give us a ride to a hotel. Before he left, I felt compelled to
ask him for his police station address so I could send him a proper thank you, and to ask
him a question that I had been mulling over since the moment he stopped to help us
several hours before:

“So why did you stop?”

After a long pause, he looked me directly in the eyes and said:
“I stopped to help you and your family because someone stopped and helped me
and my family when we were in need many years ago.”

Officer Anderson’s words have been reverberating in my heart and mind ever
since that night. His words (and actions) have provided me with much hope in my life
when we have been in difficult situations and needed help — and there have been many.
His words have also been the driving force behind my mission in this life — to reach out
and help those who are in need, to those who are hurting, to those who need compassion,
to those who need someone to help carry their burdens.

The truth of the matter is that we all need an Officer Anderson from time to time.
Life gets challenging — a flat tire, a broken relationship, an unforeseen illness, a sudden
job loss, or an unexpected bill to pay. But like Officer Anderson mentioned, he stopped
and helped us because someone stopped to help him first.

The day after Christmas I decided to contact the police station to properly thank
Officer Anderson for his service. The police chief answered and I started recounting the
amazing act of kindness we had received from one of his officers. The police chief
responded, “I’m very glad you received the help you needed the other night but there
isn’t an Officer Anderson at our station.”

To this day I’m not sure if there really is an Officer Anderson who roams the
mountains of West Virginia on I-79 north or if he is simply an angel, but I do know that
this amazing act of kindness has drastically changed the course of my life.