helping people?

ok so a few months ago i decided that i would legitimately like to be a good person. you know, the kind that reaches out to people they don't know who need help. the kind who actually does what they can instead of just talk about it. so here's three stories of the past few months of my mother theresa-ing:

taking home a kitty: kitty was not wanted, so i took kitty home. i still feel pretty good about this one, but the full story has not been told yet. in however many months, when justin and i move, will i be able to take kitty with us? will i leave kitty with my mom, who loves kitty but works all the time, where kitty will be lonely and sad? is kitty REALLY better off lonely and sad than running around like a wildcat doing all the toms she likes? only time will tell.

saving a kid from drowning: in a pool in chicago, i was about to get in, when (A STRANGER WHO WILL NOT BE NAMED) got in the pool and swamped a little kid who was clinging to the wall. he was probably like, four. i was gonna jump in and swim away, but i decided to watch for a minute. i still have some memories in my head like still shots from this: his hands slapping the water looking for the wall and missing it, his head just below the water, his mouth open for air but not quite getting above the surface. i dont know if i stood too long or not long enough (dont want to rescue a kid who is just swimming...how embarrassing), but i finally jumped in and pulled him out by the underarms. i stuck him up on the side of the pool, where he coughed for a minute, then ran for his parents. his brother (maybe 8?) came up to me and i said "you might want to check on your brother. he's having trouble." brother says "yeah, this is kind of a big kid pool."
did i save him or not? justin said he saw him too and thought he was fine. a few minutes later he was back in the water (with his dad this time thank heavens). maybe im just overbearing. but i guess this is a case where its much, MUCH better safe than sorry.

black lady and the subway: pretty high from my most legitimate and successful form of do-gooding (kid-saving), that night i was shot back down to pieces. justin and i were going to dinner when we ran into a lady who came up to us and said, "don't be scared, we're just black." caught a little off guard, i noticed she was crying. she apologized for her weird intro, and told us that the last people had called them (she was with her teenage son) niggers. she told us that they needed to get to a battered women's shelter and would we put them on the subway? i was totally for it until, BAM fear hit me in the gut. what if she was lying? people fake tears all the time. so instead of taking her to the subway, i just gave her what was in my pockets, which was not much. not enough for a fare. then we walked on. soooo: do good except when you're scared (and probably racist?), then throw each other to the dogs. pretty sure that's in the ten commandments somewhere.

mexican lady on campus: in mexico there are a lot of little old ladies (abuelitas?) they dress a certain way, old frumpy dresses, and wear their hair in long braids. i haven't seen one since coming back to the states, but yesterday i was on the top floor of my building reading mrs. dalloway when i hear a voice, "Hermana! Hermana! Hermanita!" i look up and there is this little abuelita by the elevator! shaking off my cognitive dissonance, i went up to her. she asked me if i speak spanish (un pocito), and then rattled off to me in spanish about needing help for something and a little someone on the lower floor and would i help her do something? hmm. forgetting the phrase "please speak more slowly" i pushed the button for the elevator. she got on, said something else, i stood there like an idiot, then she just said, "gracias, hermana," in a resigned way and went down. surely she could have figured out the button herself. i felt totally useless.

anyways here's the point: helping people = fun when it works out, but its weird and complicated and i mostly botch it. still, its a hard thing that feels like it's worth doing, unlike some other hard things in my life.