"My Baby Fell Out the Stroller"

Yesterday, I left my office in Midtown at the end of the day and jumped on the train to go pick up my son at school. I was rushing down the stairway at the 59th and Lexington station to catch the express train uptown, struggling against a sea of people surging up the stairs to catch the N. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a woman standing still, clutching a baby at the bottom of the stairs, standing next to an empty stroller.

"I can't stop, I'm running late, someone else will help her carry it up," I thought, and then stopped in my tracks and turned around.

One of the most rewarding things about writing this blog has been the change it has made in my OWN behavior. I notice that because I am always on the lookout for other people doing good deeds, it turns out that as a result I see more opportunities to help others myself. And the process of chronicling all the kindnesses others shower upon me makes me feel honor bound to return the favor to the universe. I feel so grateful about this. Good deeds have become my daily ethos and although I feel so flawed in many ways, this attitude is something I am really happy about.

So I just couldn't keep walking. I stopped, turned around, and asked the woman if she needed help carrying the stroller up the stairs. Suddenly I noticed that her cheeks were tear streaked and she was holding the baby very close.

"My baby fell out the stroller," she told me. "A man was helping me carry the stroller but he tripped and my baby, he fell out the stroller." She was trembling.

She was cradling the baby boy (who was maybe 6 months old) and the tears brimmed up in her eyes and trickled down her cheeks in a ceaseless stream. He was quiet in her arms, with his face pressed against her breast, sucking on a pacifier.

"Did he fall down the STAIRS?" I asked her, horrified. She looked in my eyes and nodded, and my own eyes filled with tears, seeing her mute anguish and terror. I asked her if he had cried, and she nodded. All of a sudden another woman appeared beside me. "Is everything OK?" she asked.

The mother gave a little sob and said again, "My baby fell out the stroller, my baby fell out the stroller!" The new woman said, "Well you have got to get him to a doctor, and make sure he is all right!"

"I know," said the mother. "But I ain't putting him back in that stroller!"

I put down my packages (book, magazine, leftovers from lunch) on the ground and said "I will carry the stroller outside for you, if you carry the baby."

As I turned around I noticed that a large group of people had suddenly gathered around the three of us. A young man asked me, "Were you going up the stairs yourself?"

"No," I answered. "I was going down to the 4/5. But I don't mind."

"I'll carry the stroller, and make sure she gets outside OK with the baby," he said, smiled reassuringly at the mother, and lifted the stroller effortlessly, motioning her to follow him. A crowd of people surrounded her as she went up the stairs, sort of placing their hands in the air around and behind her, as if to catch her and the baby if she stumbled.