GrabCar Driver Stunned His Suspicious Passenger With Simple Act of Kindness

There is never a scarcity of kind-hearted people.

They may not be recognized for their kind deeds – heck, no one may even know about what they’re doing for others, but they still keep on helping people anyway.

Take this story about a Grab Car driver as an example. His female passenger narrated this story. At first, she felt frightened, but then she realized that there was absolutely no need to fear the man behind the wheels. Find out why.

Read the story below: (Some parts translated in English)

I was not able to take a photo of what the driver did because it was too dark and I was surprised with what he did. But I want to share what happened. This is quite long but bear with me for a few minutes here, please.

I am a fan of Grab App. Like many people today, I find it extremely convenient and a lot safer than regular metered taxis. Their drivers, in general, are accommodating, respectful, and very easy to talk to.

Last night, I used Grab again. After we dropped off my friend, we turned right on a street to take the route home. The road was quite dark, except for a few establishments that were still open at midnight. I was alone with the driver at this point. And because 1) I like slasher/ detective/ mystery films; 2) crimes involving public transport vehicles are very rampant; and 3) I have a very assuming and hyperactive imagination; I couldn’t help but be a little (okay, a LOT) paranoid.

I was pretending to look at my phone, but all my “danger sensors” were on high-alert because the Grab driver suddenly slowed down and said something that I wasn’t able to catch entirely. I only understood that he will alight the vehicle.

I was not able to react because he has already stopped the car beside a pavement. He took off his seatbelt and pulled something from his feet. It was a medium-sized brown bag.

The passenger felt scared when the driver alighted the vehicle on a dark street.

 

And because I was being paranoid, I tried calling a friend. I was waiting for my best friend to pick up but my gaze was fixed on the driver as he got out of the car and strolled to the dark sidewalk. I was looking for something that would convince me that I was in trouble and that I needed to get out of there fast.

I was starting to get worried because my best friend wasn’t picking up the call. I looked towards the windshield and thought of where I can run off to, just in case.  When I turned my gaze back to the driver, I was confused by what I saw.

He was bending over a dark figure lying on the cold, slightly wet pavement. I was wondering what on earth he was doing when the figure suddenly rose. It was an elderly woman sleeping on the sidewalk, I realized.

The old woman looked a little dazed from suddenly waking up from her sleep. The Grab Driver was telling her something as he pointed to the brown bag that I noticed was now placed in front of her. I was watching this interaction from inside the car, and the driver had his back turned to me so I didn’t really know what was being said. But I saw the old woman point at herself, probably asking, “For me?” and the Grab Driver replying to whatever she said with a nod. The sidewalk was dark and lonely, but the look on her face after that lit up the whole street. She smiled at the Grab driver and said something to him again. He said something, too, waved goodbye to her, and quickly returned to the car.

By this time, all thoughts of gory news headlines and horrible viral Facebook stories in my head were gone. They were replaced with a bit of relief, and a lot of shock and embarrassment for the way I acted.

As he continued driving to our destination, I was silent for about a minute or two because I felt guilty that I had been so quick to judge. Though, I couldn’t help but probe a little about what he did. I asked him if he knew the old woman, and he answered no, it was the first time he saw her. I also asked what was inside the brown bag. He told me it was food.

“It that your leftover food?” I asked.

“No, Ma’am. We really cook sometimes and give the food away to people,” he replied.

“We?”

“My friends and my girlfriend.”

“Do you do this regularly?”

“Yes, Ma’am, we do this regularly. Not all the time, but often. We also did this on my birthday last January 30.”

He went on telling me how he and his friends would chip in money to buy and cook meals they would give out to homeless people on the streets. They also give used clothes and blankets, because as he said, that’s what they need especially now that it’s getting chilly at night. Sometimes, the whole group would ride with him and conduct the simple act of kindness when he wasn’t on driving duty. Sometimes, it was just him.

The driver, his girlfriend, and his friends regularly give food to the homeless.

I was sitting at the back so I couldn’t see his face, but as he told me about this one time they gave clothes to a homeless child along a national road, I couldn’t help but notice how his voice was filled with…joy.

“Do you know about the film “Ang Probinsyano” [Man from the Province], Ma’am? Do you know Onyok? One of the kids in the group was just like him. He was pouting and was scratching his head because none of the clothes fit him as he was small,” he narrated, laughing heartily as he finished the story.

I looked at him through the rearview mirror. He was young, maybe just a few years older than me (I’m 21). His friends and girlfriend, I assumed, were all about his age, too. Not many people, especially YOUNG people, would think about doing something like that without a reason, or at least, a story behind it. So I asked him who initiated the idea and what inspired them to do it.

“My and girlfriend and I thought about it. Every day, I drive and I see them on the streets, especially when they lie down in the pavements at night to sleep. Too often, they are hungry, but they choose to sleep instead. So we decided to do this so we can at least help alleviate their hunger even for just one night,” he said.

They wish to alleviate the hunger of homeless people, even for just one night.

 

My heart swelled and I smiled to myself, silently thanking God for using them as instruments of His love. My respect for them went sky high. And just when I thought I couldn’t get any more impressed, he went on to say something that completely blew me away.

“People say that they are the kind of people that the government needs to help,” he said while slightly shaking his head as if he find that thought a bit bizarre. “We were thinking, why would you wait for the government when you can help them in your own way?”

After that, I wanted to give him and his group of friends a standing ovation. Now who can say that the generation of youth today is no longer our nation’s hope?  These people belong to the current generation of Filipino youth, and look at what they’re doing: making a quiet change one meal and one piece of used clothing at a time.

What a kind-hearted driver!

So, to the Grab Car driver, a huge THANK YOU and a big SALUTE to you and your friends! Special props to you for using your job as a Grab driver to perform these acts of kindness. People like you restore my faith in the goodness of humankind, so continue doing what you’re doing. Thank you and kudos to people like you who have compassion for others and for the country.

(I shared this experience because this is the kind of story I want people on social media to read. Because these stories make you realize that, yes, the world like that street we went to, may be filled with darkness. But there are always these little specks of light that break through….and they make all the difference.)

You see, stories like this one make us believe that there is innate kindness in each one of us. What we need to do is share that spark of kindness to the people that we meet each day, and know that through those simple acts, we are helping, albeit slowly, to change the world as we know it.

Source: Gelica Manuel Tulauan / Facebook