I want to thank everybody who supported me through my hospitalization last month and through my convalescence at home following it.  I was really good and stayed home and rested with a goal of going to a major league baseball game with friends on July 4th. 

These were the friends who took me to the hospital to begin with, the friends who visited me while there to help me get through how being hospitalized triggered me, and the friends who drove me home when I was discharged, so their offer of a baseball game on July 4th was consistent with my getting better as a reward.

We went, and it was HOT.  Oh, boy, was it ever a HOT day.  After a while, my friends and I abandoned our really good seats to find some shade.  That's when things got funny.

As usher saw me melting there in a chair leaning on my cane, so she got me a bag of ice to put on the top of my head.  After that one melted, another usher brought me another fresh bag all on her own, and so there I sat with another bag of ice on my head.

Finally, a beer vendor saw me and put down his cooler of beer, took the bag off of my head, untied it for me, and filled it with his own ice from his beer cooler, then put the freshened bag of ice on the top of my head again.  A beer vendor cared for me!!!

I can imagine how funny I must have looked to everybody else in the crowd sitting there with bags of ice on the top of my head, but it did the trick.  The most interesting thing was how much the ushers and even that beer vendor CARED for me to keep this old man on a cane cooled down on that hot day in the stadium.  Total strangers, and it was NOT their job. 

After the game, on the subway ride home the subway cars were jammed with baseball fans.  I got on with my cane, not really great at standing  holding on to a pole.  Guess what?  A total stranger, a young man, got up and gave me his seat on the subway!  Holy cow!  I thanked him for his kindness and care three times. 

As a trauma survivor I've been violated and have been the subject of extreme violence by both loved ones and strangers.  A total stranger once knelt me down in the street overseas, put a gun to my head, pulled the trigger twice, and laughed when the gun jammed twice.  I peed my pants. 

So it really stands out to be when total strangers CARE for me instead like those folks at the stadium, and do it for hours on end.  Then when a stranger gives me his subway seat afterward.  The day is all a grateful memory now for me, the day after.  Me, the funny old guy getting given bags of ice to balance on the top of his head.

Many of us know extreme trauma from strangers like I do.  Does anybody else have a memory of kindness and care from strangers like I have from yesterday, July 4th?