A feel good story

A Complete Stranger Saved This Mom and Her 4 Kids but Wanted 1 Major Thing in Return

After Tawny Nelson's car broke down at night in the pouring rain with her four young daughters crying in the back, countless people just drove by as she begged for help.

The single mother of four explained that things had been rough since her partner left - her vehicle was in such bad shape that she only drove if absolutely necessary and her cell phone was disconnected. She and her children desperately needed groceries so they made a quick trip to the store. However, one of her girls accidentally left a light on in the car and they returned to a completely drained battery. "I must have asked more than twenty people in the course of two hours for a jump," she wrote to Frank Somerville, which he shared on his Facebook page. "They all ignored me. Not even a no. [They] just acted like I didn't exist."

As her newborn screamed, her 2-year-old cried from hunger, and her 9-year-old desperately tried to help, Tawny described that she started to break down herself. "I was bawling and felt like the worst Mom ever," she recalled.
At that moment, a 74-year-old man with a bad limp knocked on the window. He handed her a plate of food and bottles of water for her family and let her know that a tow truck was on its way and that his wife was going to drive them home. The next day, the gentleman returned to her house with a mechanic and they made multiple repairs to her car.

After the kind stranger left, Tawny asked the mechanic if she could set up a payment plan, but he informed her that the man had already taken care of the bill.

"He said that the only payment the older man wanted was for me to never give up and keep being an amazing mom," Tawny wrote. "I've never cried so hard in my life. Things had been absolutely awful, more so than I care to explain, and without knowing us or our situation this kind man helped us in ways he will never know."

Tawny is grateful to the man for restoring her faith in humanity when she says she was falling apart. And while she knows that she can never repay him - he wouldn't even take a hug - she hopes to one day do for another what he did for her.

Lauren Levy, Popsugar