We met a lovely cab driver in Dublin named John.  We started talking about my mom leaving Ireland to become a nurse and how after working for just six weeks in Toronto, she had the police called to bring a doctor in to the hospital for her patient and he ended up saving the woman’s baby.  John said he had a story too.

He said his dad drove a bus for years in a working class neighbourhood in Dublin.  He knew all the passengers and chatted with them as they journeyed to work and home each day.  One morning, a heavily pregnant passenger boarded the bus.  And after one stop, she went into a quick labour.

John’s dad abandoned the route and drove the bus straight to the Rotunda Hospital.  He brought the hospital employees to the aid of the woman and went back to work.

He was then disciplined for leaving the bus route.  But he didn’t mind.  Because he knew in his heart he had done what was right.

Years later John’s dad passed away.  He was a well-loved man and the funeral was packed.

Near the end of the service a young woman approached John and his family.  They asked how she had known their dad.

She said, “I am the baby who was born after he dropped my mom at the hospital from the bus.”

She had always wanted to meet her hero and had read about his passing.  She wanted to say thank you.

We each have chances every day to make a difference.  Sometimes we will be unsure what to do.  We will be scared.  But if we follow our heart and do what we believe is right, it will all work out in the end.

Don’t be afraid to leave the path and blaze a trail.  As poet Robert Frost once said, “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less travelled by,
and that has made all the difference.”