Go and do likewise

I remember vividly a movie I watched as a child: an animated “Living Scriptures” movie featuring the

parable of “The Good Samaritan.” It was one of my first exposures to movie violence, as two robbers

descended upon an unsuspecting traveler and beat him senseless with large stones.

This representation really skewed my understanding of the parable. I was shocked and disgusted when

the priest and Levite passed by the injured man, lying in a ditch and bleeding from the head, feebly

calling out for help. I didn’t think too much about the Good Samaritan who did stop…he seemed like the

only normal person in the story. Of course, any rational person would stop if they actually saw someone

dying on the side of the road. The priest and Levite were on par with the villains I saw in Disney

movies…not regular people, existing somewhere in the grayscale, but blackhearted monsters who would

kidnap children and commit cold-blooded murder to achieve their ends. I think my takeaway from the

parable was “good people stop and help people who are bleeding.”

In my adult life, however, I have yet to come across a victim of violent crime. So, the parable got filed

away in the back of my mind as one of those stories that was applicable in Jesus’ day, but not so much in

my own. That is, until I learned there is more than one kind of injury, and that not all cries for help are

verbal.

It was 2017, and I was seven months pregnant with my third child, traveling from Alaska back to my

home in Virginia on a red-eye flight (aren’t they all red-eye?) After landing in Seattle, I tried to wake my

two children gently. Somehow, I managed to exit the plane with kids and luggage in tow, but there we

stopped. The two-year-old was in the stroller, but the four-year-old wanted to be carried, and I had no

more hands. Frantically, I attempted to reason, plead, threaten, bribe, even attempted a short-lived and

ill-advised piggy back maneuver… anything to get my child to the next gate so that we didn’t miss our

connecting flight. Nothing worked: she wanted to be held and there was no convincing her otherwise.

Silently, my soul began to beg for help. I didn’t expect a stranger to get me out of this self-afflicted

predicament, but my panicked thoughts flew to Heaven like emergency flares.

Help! Oh, help! I’m going to miss my flight and there’s no possible way for me to carry her and push this

stroller and pull this bag…and if we miss this flight, it will be even longer before I’ll be able to get home!

I’m tired, I’m hungry, I’m stressed, help me somehow!

As if my prayer was audible, an older couple stepped toward me.

“Excuse me,” the woman said, “This might seem strange, I know you don’t know me at all, but I have a

long layover before my next flight. Will you let me carry your daughter to your next gate?”

Of course, I was amenable to this solution, and surprisingly, Rosy was too. She gratefully wrapped her

arms around this helpful woman’s neck and began chatting happily to her new best friend. The man

took the small suitcase I had been awkwardly pulling behind me, and we all made it together to my next

gate, with time to spare.

These kind people were my Good Samaritans. Although I wasn’t bruised or broken, I was suffering. I

needed human compassion and, quite frankly, a willing pair of arms that could carry a forty-pound child.

Everyone is busy going somewhere in an airport—it would have been easy for this couple to see my

need and to ignore it. It would have been even easier for my need to go unnoticed as the couple

searched for a suitable breakfast, scrolled through social media, or “zoned out” thinking of their own

problems. But I believe they were in tune with the spirit, and were looking and listening for invisible and

unspoken need. I needed them, and they came to me, when dozens of my fellow neighbors passed me

by, completely unaware.

Many people struggling with depression, grief, stress, feelings of loneliness, or inadequacy are suffering

silently, sending out “flare prayers.” But unless we are looking out for them, we may not notice.

This couple personified what it means to be Good Samaritans, and as Jesus’ concluded his parable, I pray

that I can “go and do likewise.”

Rachel Kenley Fry is a writer, mother of four, and member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day

Saints. After living all over the United States, she and her family are finally back home in Alaska,

hopefully for good.