Hope came in a Yellow Cab

A little over a decade ago, I was suffering from acute back pain, scheduled for an MRI scan. The appointment was still a week away - each day leading up to it felt endless. My thoughts wondered what the scan would reveal, what it would mean.

That weekend, I scrolled through the hundreds of people in my network, and I realized - In the journey of life, we walk alone.

It wasn't that people didn't care, some close ones called. Some sounded genuinely concerned, asking how such pain found me so young. A few suspected a fall, or an injury may have triggered it. Others pinned it on my resilience - that I worked through fatigue, ignored discomfort, and rested far too little. A handful probed deeper - wanting to know what came next, simply medications or surgery? And then there were the storytellers - who offered tales of someone else’s suffering - of a distant cousin, a friend of a friend - enduring similar pain for years. I listened to them all. But amidst the analysis and anecdotes, something essential was missing - "presence".

By presence, I don't mean someone physically accompanying me, but someone who could just be present in that moment - no one asked if I was anxious or if I was scared to go for an MRI scan.

I still remember that day vividly. I took a two-hour break from work during lunch, hailed a yellow NYC taxi, and shared the hospital location with the driver. As we began the ride, he glanced me through the rearview mirror. He said, "That's a big hospital you're headed to, are you visiting someone? I hope they are alright." I smiled. And I replied, "No, I'm the patient and I'm going for a scan." Then, I turned my gaze to the passing city outside the window. At the next stoplight, he turned back - not through the mirror this time but directly facing me - and said, "Don't worry. Everything is going to be alright with you."

And those - those were the only words I truly needed.

Simple. Unscripted. Human.

Those words carried me not just through that first MRI scan, but through the numerous ones that followed. He was God sent, whenever uncertainty grows heavy, I replay those words in his voice, and something inside me magnifies the hope.

It's astonishing how a single, compassionate moment from a stranger can become a touchstone of strength across years of quiet struggle. That taxi driver didn’t know my story, but in that instant, he saw me. And that presence… was everything I needed.

Neeta Devadiga