Think back to a time a stranger helped you at just the right moment. Maybe someone pushed your stalled car out of an intersection, or carried the groceries you could not quite manage. Chances are you still remember it.
Earlier this month in Maricopa, Arizona, an 80-year-old man had one of those moments. The stranger was Jordan Hope, and he is 18.
A Pair of Slides Off His Own Feet
Hope was driving along John Wayne Parkway on his way to the bank. Near a Walgreens, he spotted an older man using a walker. The man’s shoes were falling apart.
“I looked at his feet and his shoes were like maybe a fourth on his foot,” Hope told Arizona’s Family.
So Hope pulled over. He took off his own size 13 Nike slides and gave them to the man.
“He was confused because, it’s out of the normal,” Hope told ABC15.
Hope had no idea anyone was watching. Yareli Madrid saw it happen from the drugstore parking lot and caught part of it on video. The clip spread through local Facebook groups as people tried to learn who the young man was. Hundreds commented, and one commenter said they knew Hope as a former student.
“Watching this young man take the shoes off his own feet and give them to an older man who needed them truly touched my heart,” Madrid wrote in her post.
What made it even more special, she added, was that he did it with no cameras and no expectation of praise.
Why Did He Turn Around?
The shoes were only the beginning. Hope drove off. Then he felt what he called a “tug” to go back.
He found the man inside the store. Hope helped him pick up a prescription and bought him his favorite candy. (Peanut M&Ms, for the record.)
Next, Hope offered to take him to lunch at Culver’s. Climbing into Hope’s car was too hard for the man, so Hope called him a rideshare, met him at the restaurant and picked up the food. Then he followed the ride home to make sure the man got inside safely.
Somewhere along the way, Hope learned that the man had lost his wife just two weeks earlier.
“That honestly broke my heart,” Hope said. “I just think he needed a friend.”
He stayed a while to talk. “So he didn’t feel that loneliness, you know?” Hope explained.
Did the Friendship Last?
ABC15 reached the man by phone. He chose not to be part of the story. He did say that asking for help is hard for him, and that the young man’s kindness baffled him. He was grateful, he said, to have made a new friend at such a difficult time.
That friendship did not end in the driveway. Hope now checks in on him by phone every day.
Hope recently graduated from high school and runs his own computer-building business in Maricopa and Casa Grande. He has heard the knock on his generation, and he disagrees with it.
“People say that this newer generation is just like they don’t care, you know? But I don’t believe that,” he said.
You may have heard the same thing said about your own generation once.
“Just being kind to someone can go a long way,” Hope said. “You never know what someone is going through.”
The slides were the part people saw on video. The part that matters most came after: a second trip back, a lunch run, and a phone call every day.
The same kind of help is within reach of anyone with a telephone. Think of someone you know who would never ask, and give them a call this week.
