10/24/2025
This story truly touched my heart. It’s such a reminder that wellness isn’t just about food or fitness — it’s about connection, compassion, and how we show up for one another. When we lift someone else’s load, we lighten our own hearts too. 💕
If you can be anything, be kind. You never know what someone else is carrying.
"My name’s Betty. I’m 72. I work part-time at Hart’s Hardware, not because I need the money, but because my grandkids said, “Nana, you need something to do.” So I took the shelf-stocking job. Quiet work. No one bothers me.
For months, I just pushed carts and arranged hammers. Then I noticed something, people carry heavy things alone. Not just bags of cement or paint cans. Everything.
Like Mr. Fabian last Tuesday. He was 80, shaky hands, trying to lift a 50-pound bag of gravel onto his cart. His face turned red. He dropped it twice. No one helped. Everyone looked away. Even me. I felt sick.
So I started watching. Really watching.
I saw the young mom with three kids, struggling to carry a box of light bulbs while holding a baby. I saw the veteran with one arm, wrestling a ladder onto his shoulder. I saw the widow (I know you said no widows, but this isn’t about her grief, it’s about her courage) trying to load plywood into her tiny car.
One rainy Thursday, it hit me, I don’t have to lift the heavy things. I just have to ask for help.
I walked up to Mr. Fabian. “Sir,” I said, “that gravel’s too much for one person. Can I get someone to help?” He nodded, embarrassed. I tapped a teenager buying nails, “Hey, could you give this gentleman a hand?” The kid shrugged, “Sure,” and lifted the bag. Mr. Fabian’s eyes watered. “Thank you,” he whispered. “My wife used to do this.”
That’s when it began.
I started asking everyone,
“Can you hold this ladder while Mrs. Rossi loads it?”
“Would you mind carrying that bag for Mr. Chen? He’s got a bad knee.”
“Hey, you two, could you help her with those pipes?”
At first, people were hesitant. But soon? They wanted to help. The teenage boy who helped Mr. Fabian started doing it every shift. The mom with the baby? She began holding doors open for others. Even the store manager, Mr. Hart, noticed. “Betty,” he said, “you’re making this place feel like a neighborhood.”
Then came the day that changed everything.
A man in a worn work shirt stood frozen by the water heaters. He was trembling, staring at a 100-pound unit. I’d seen him before, always alone, always quiet. I walked over. “Need a hand?” He shook his head, tears in his eyes. “I..... I can’t do this alone.”
I didn’t ask a stranger this time. I stood beside him. “Neither can I,” I said. “But together? We’ll try.” We lifted it. One inch at a time. His hands shook, so I gripped the handle tighter. When we set it down, he hugged me. “Thank you,” he choked out. “I was gonna quit today. I thought..... no one cared.”
That night, he came back. Not to buy anything. To tell me his name, David. He’d lost his job, his wife left him, and he was planning to end it all. “You looked at me like I mattered,” he said. “Like I wasn’t invisible.”
Now? David works weekends at Hart’s. He asks for help too. And the chain keeps growing.
Last week, a woman dropped her wheelchair in the parking lot. Before I could move, three strangers rushed to help. One was David. Another was the teen who first helped Mr. Fabian. The third? A new mom, holding her baby in one arm, lifting the chair with the other.
Here’s what I’ve learned,
The heaviest things we carry aren’t cement or ladders. They’re loneliness, shame, and the fear that no one sees you.
But when one person says, “Let me help,” it gives others permission to do the same.
You don’t need a bakery, a fridge, or a garden.
You just need one moment where you see someone carrying a weight too big for one person.
And you say,
“I’ll help. And I’ll ask others to help too.”
That’s how you build a world where no one is alone."
Let this story reach more hearts....
Please follow us: Astonishing
By Mary Nelson
