On the train out of Zurich airport, I realized fairly quickly I’d made a mistake. As I watched the names of towns and cities scrolling on the wall monitor, Bern was not coming up.

“Excuse me,” I said to the man sitting across from me, hoping he spoke English. “Does this train go to Bern?”

He shook his head and quickly explained (in English) that I could get off at the next stop and board another train, one that would take me where I wanted to go.

Then a suprising offer. “I can help. The platform you need is in the same direction as mine.” We left the train in step with each other.

“Have you always lived in Switzerland?” I asked as we descended an escalator, heading together toward our separate trains.

“No, I’m from Tibet,” he replied. Then asked me where I was coming from. A few minutes later I gave him a grateful smile and we parted ways. Such kindness.

Later that evening, wandering the streets of Bern, I squeezed past a woman pushing a stroller on a narrow street only to be stopped by another woman, her eyes wide, hand pressing my arm.

“I am worried about the child,” the woman said to me in French. “The mother is not treating her well.” By this time the woman and stroller had disappeared through an arch, rounded a corner and were out of our sight.

“Je suis désolé,” I replied. “Je ne l’ai pas vue.” Then I apologized again, frustrated by my language barrier. “Je ne parle français très bien.” The woman switched immediately to English less fractured than my French and apologized for laying her worries on me. Then she asked where I was from. Ten minutes later, we parted ways. She apologized again, explaining she didn’t want to be late for mass on Good Friday.

“But thank you, I feel so much better for having talked with you,” she said.

“Moi aussi,” I replied, wanting to offer as much of her language as I could. Although we’d connected from concern, our moods had lightened as we talked. Such serendipity.

In Geneva, I stood in the middle of a cobbled street and pointed my camera towards a window where green shutters against an open window framed a tiny garden. I liked the image, liked imagining the story beyond.

“What are you doing?” a woman asked me, her French precise, easy for me to understand. I pointed to the window and explained my enjoyment of street photography. My French was far less precise, but she understood.

“Allons-y,” she said, taking hold of my arm, propelling me along the street. “I want to show you something very special.” As we walked she asked where I was from and what brought me to her neighbourhood. I explained I was visiting friends who lived nearby and that it was my last day of vacation. Tomorrow, I would return to Canada.

“Regardez,” she instructed, pointing to a wall with the dates 1815 and 28 Juin etched into the stucco around a hole the size of a cannon ball. And then she told me it was indeed a cannon ball that had punctured that wall. But not just any cannon ball. Neighbourhood lore says this was the last cannonball shot as the Napoleanic wars ended. Apparently, one of Napolean’s generals was hiding in this very building. Such a story!

Three strangers. Three encounters. Three reasons to connect. In the first, I needed immediate help from a man I did not know. In the second, a woman needed someone to share the burden of her concern. In the third, another woman satisfied her curioisty by engaging with me, a strange woman with a camera.

A week after I returned from my vacation, I sat with a group of university students studying the story of Jesus encountering a Samaritan woman at a well. They are strangers and there are gender and racial barriers to be navigated, but still, Jesus asks the woman for a drink of water. What happens next is worth discovering if you don’t know already! It’s one of my favourite stories of strangers connecting in spite of fearsome barriers.

It’s a story, like my stories of what happens when, instead of passing each other by, strangers pause, acknowledge each other, and speak. Out of those first faltering words, kindness is unleashed, burdens are lightened, and joyful discoveries are shared.