It was a nice sunny Saturday. Perfect for a short move across town. My two small children and I had moved three times since their father left us to start another life with his girlfriend. It had been a rough few years, and we were all tired.

I had been up early and finished most of the packing by 9 a.m. so that the guys who had promised to move us would have an easy time of it. We sat and waited. And waited. And waited. No one called and no one came. I sat down outside around 3 in the afternoon, away from the children, and had a good sob. It began to rain. So much for a perfect day to move. I cried out to God that I couldn’t keep going, keep being disappointed by people, keep my act and everything else together for my children all by myself. I gave up.

Twenty minutes later my sister, her new boyfriend and one of his friends showed up out of the blue with two pickup trucks. To this day I don’t know how they even knew I was moving. These two men, who I did not even know, moved our entire household in those two pickups. My sister made sure everything got unloaded into the right places in the new apartment and made sure we all had a bed with sheets and blankets to sleep in that night.

They wouldn’t let me give them anything for all their work and acted like it was no big deal. They will never know that they truly saved my sanity that day and restored my faith in human beings.

I have moved many times since that day, and each time I have had everything I needed to get the job done, but that move is the one that stands out in my mind as the best moving day ever.