One Day Someone Will Do This for Me

I left for Europe believing I was traveling alone. Technically, I was.

I boarded planes alone, navigated train stations alone, checked into hotels alone, and wandered unfamiliar cities with nothing but Google Maps, an oversized suitcase, and varying degrees of confidence in my ability to figure things out.

What I did not expect was how many women would quietly accompany me along the way.

Their names were mostly unknown to me. Their acts of kindness were often brief. Yet by the end of my journey through Italy and France, I began to wonder whether I had stumbled into something larger than coincidence: an invisible network of women who notice.

When I arrived in Pavia, Italy to attend my niece’s First Communion, I was making my way out of the train station with an oversized suitcase, a carry-on, and a handbag. A young woman noticed me. “Do you need help?” she asked.

I remember feeling both embarrassed and relieved. “Yes, please,” I replied. “Thank you so much.”

She walked over to the larger suitcase and grabbed it by the wheel end while I held the opposite side. Together, we carried it up the stairs. For those few moments we shared the weight of the heaviest bag.

When we reached the top, I noticed that the wheels had rubbed against her jeans, leaving marks on the fabric. “Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry,” I said.

She looked down, smiled as though it were the most insignificant thing in the world, and said, “One day someone will do this for me.”

I thanked her again and continued on my way, believing I had simply met an exceptionally kind stranger. I had no idea her words would quietly accompany me across Europe.

A few days later, I began to understand what she meant. I was headed to Venice. Italy’s transportation system had been disrupted by a nationwide strike affecting trains and public transportation throughout the country.

Passengers stood beneath electronic boards displaying delays and cancellations. I was one of them.

At the station, two women nearby were discussing whether passengers should simply board the next available train to Milan regardless of their assigned route.

One of the women turned toward me and asked something in Italian. Her name was Zeinab.

At first, we discussed the strike and the confusion surrounding the trains. Then another woman joined the conversation. Unlike either of us, she seemed completely confident in her understanding of what was happening.

“Take the next train to Milan,” she advised. The certainty in her voice was reassuring.

Travel has a way of humbling you. In your own city, you know how things work. In a foreign country, that confidence disappears. Suddenly, the person with the answers is not you. It’s the stranger standing beside you.

When the train arrived, Zeinab and I boarded together. I assumed our conversation would end there. Instead, it was just beginning.

Without hesitation, Zeinab shifted into problem-solving mode. She guided me from the train station toward the metro and explained exactly what needed to happen next.

Only later, during our conversation, did I learn that she was on her way to a doctor’s appointment. She had somewhere important to be. Yet she spent part of her morning helping a stranger.

What happened next surprised me even more. Other women began joining the effort.

Somehow, they had all become part of the same mission: helping one traveler continue her journey.

The same pattern would follow me all the way to Venice.

The ride itself felt magical, water replacing roads, boats replacing cars, centuries of history rising directly from the lagoon.

For a brief moment, I believed the hardest part was behind me. Then I stepped off the vaporetto. Within minutes, I was lost.

For nearly an hour I wandered through alleyways and over bridges. The city seemed to be gently laughing at me. As though it was quietly saying: Slow down. Pay attention. Stop trying to control everything.

As I turned around to retrace my steps, a woman approached me. “Do you need help?” she asked. I laughed. By that point, the answer was obvious.

“That’s very kind of you,” I said. “I’m a little lost. “She smiled. “I’m a little lost myself.” We both laughed. There was something oddly comforting about that.

Kindness was moving through this trip, quietly and unexpectedly.

I would encounter it again before the journey ended. This time, in Paris. Yet somehow, it still surprised me.

Paris had been the final chapter of my journey. The city delivered everything I had hoped for and a few things I had not.

I was tired. Not exhausted in the dramatic sense. Just travel-tired. The kind of tiredness that settles into your bones after weeks of moving through different cities.

When I arrived at passport control, the line was already long. Then it became longer.

A sinking feeling began to settle in my stomach. I was going to miss my flight.

Nearby stood an airport staffer who only spoke French. I attempted to explain my situation anyway. I pointed to my boarding pass. I pointed toward the front of the line. I tried gestures.

I tried fragments of communication that existed somewhere between language and desperation. Nothing seemed to work. That was when she noticed.

A young Australian woman standing nearby with her boyfriend had been quietly observing the situation.

She could have continued minding her own business. Most people probably would have, Instead she stepped forward. “Excuse me!” she called. Then again. Louder. “Excuse me! This lady is going to miss her flight!”

What moved me was not simply that she spoke up. It was how invested she became. I remember feeling deeply touched by that. Not because she solved everything. But because she tried. Because she noticed. That word kept returning.” Notice”.

Individually, each act seemed small. Collectively, they became impossible to ignore.

By the time I boarded my flight home, I found myself thinking about something I had not expected to learn on this trip. Travel is often presented as a story of independence. A solo traveler conquering uncertainty, but independence turned out to be only part of the story. The other part was interdependence. The reality that none of us move through the world entirely alone.

Many men were kind to me throughout my travels as well, but women often move through the world with an acute awareness of vulnerability.

Perhaps that is why these women recognized something familiar. And perhaps that is why I recognized myself in them.

When I think about Europe now, I remember the beauty, but when I think about what moved me most, I find myself returning to people. More specifically, to women. Women who interrupted their day to help a stranger. They reminded me that kindness still circulates through the world.

I often think about the young woman in Pavia. The one whose jeans I dirtied with my oversized suitcase. The one who smiled and said:

“One day someone will do this for me.”