The Good Samaritan

On April 9th 2023 my life changed in an instant. I had just landed in one of the most beautiful countries in the world and was going to see tulips on steroids in Amsterdam.

My mom passed away on February 3rd of this year. She was 89 and she had been through so much over the last year of her life. I saw her go through things that were so unfair and so incredibly difficult. I have come to love my mom in a way that I never thought possible and I miss her every day.

She always used to say “If You Don’t Toot Your Own Horn, No One Will”. She told me I was beautiful, and she always said I was going to do something really spiritual someday.

She was so REAL in how she looked at life. She said how she felt and didn’t mince words much. I loved that about her.

This trip to the Netherlands was supposed to be a healing trip for me, a girls trip, where I could just forget about life for a little while.

I love to listen to music and I had one cheap headphone in my ear… I was on an electric bike that I had rented. The seat was too high and I was nervous. I told the lady in charge to lower my seat. She ignored me and said it was the right height. I knew it was too high, but I was too nice to say anything.

I’m very athletic with really long legs and I’m really good at swimming, yoga, and hiking.

I was the grandma who jumped on the trampoline with her grandchildren and was learning to roller skate again, so I could be the FUN grandma.

But I wasn’t a biker, I never wanted to be a biker, and I was afraid of biking at my age.

But for some reason everyone seemed to think that this would be easy for me. It wasn’t easy, it was HARD, and just when I thought I was really going to love this trip, a car came from nowhere and almost hit me. All of my weight went to my left ankle and foot. I stood still but the bike went down.

Woman we’re staring at me, woman who you thought we’re your friends, we’re probably laughing at me. Woman can be so MEAN(especially competitive woman)

There was one particular woman who had it out for me the minute she saw me. She instantly hated me. This woman was supposed to be my friend. We we’re members of the same church and instead of being my friend, she bullied me for an entire week.

She stared at me everyday. She saw pictures of my husband who I love dearly and said he was heavy, like her husband was. I said that was an old picture and he had lost a lot of weight.

She asked me if all of my money that I earned at a Boutique went to clothes, she asked if I always used that much salt on my food. She kept staring at me and I’ve never felt more humiliated or uncomfortable in my entire life.

This woman was a BULLY who came on a trip to Amsterdam to release stress. I put up with her bullying for an entire week, until the last day when she asked me why I was getting in the hot tub and that I was going to get cellulitis.

I told her I was getting in the hot tub because I had spent a ton of money on a trip that I was supposed to be biking and instead I spent the entire week on a boat while she rode on her bike thinking that she was better than everyone there.

My friend told me she had been a Relief Society President and she was a widow. I was kind to her for an entire week. I had compassionate for her. Even though I could barely walk, had a sprained ankle, a torn ACL, two miniscus tears, and a bone chip, with injuries that have changed my life forever.

The second day I got on the bike I had sprained my ankle and probably a partial ACL tear is what my surgeon thinks. I didn’t even know I had injured my knee until two days later. I got on the bike the next day because I’m tough and a fighter and I had paid a lot of money to go on this trip. A very nice friend invited me to go but her friend was not my friend, and I was the underdog.

The weather was cold, my friend was worried about me. I was shivering and dehydrated and on a bike tour that I should of never gone on because I never felt good about going.

We had biked 15 miles in really cold weather. I was the smallest female there with the least amount of body fat. I was dehydrated, exhausted, and I had a sprained ankle.

We were given the opportunity to go on a longer ride, the competitive ones were eager to go. The bully was the first to say she was going. My friend looked at me with compassion and I told her I would go and I would be ok. That was a bad decision on my part.

We were in a busy city with street lights and curves and turns and stopping and starting and my body was taking a beating. All of the sudden I felt this horrible pain shoot down my left calf, I couldn’t move and I cried out in excruciating pain and I CRASHED again, this time going down HARD.

However, this is when the story gets beautiful.

Out of nowhere, a beautiful Dutch lady who was on a feeding tube or possibly an oxygen tube came running to me. She picked me up and held my hand and brought me into her home. I was bleeding profusely and she dressed my wound. I couldn’t walk and she took my hand, I was afraid and she made me feel safe and loved. Her husband comforted me, he talked to me, brought me into his home, they made me tea and they gave me a ride to my boat and he offered me his crutches.

It was Easter Sunday and a catholic couple who I had never meant in my entire life, treated me better than most members of my own church ever have.

To be a Christian is not about your religion, its how you treat people.

None of us need one more person bashing or pointing out where we have failed or fallen short. Most of us are already well aware of the areas in which we are weak. What each of us does need is family, friends, employers, and brothers and sisters who support us, who have the patience to teach us, who believe in us, and who believe we’re trying to do the best we can, in spite of our weaknesses. Whatever happened to giving each other the benefit of the doubt? What ever happened to hoping that another person would succeed or achieve? What ever happened to rooting for each other?

Marvin J. Ashton

Her name was Wilma en Anco MullerVoorstraat 241931 AL Egmond aan see

I will never forget her, she was my guardian angel, and I thank God every day that she was on her front porch that day, so that I could witness a miracle.