It was November 2015, and I had just contracted Dengue Fever.
I was living on the island of Bali, several thousand kilometres from my family. I knew on that very first night that I had Dengue Fever. My whole body ached, and I had a fever. The next morning, I woke up SO tired and sore, but somehow I still felt okay enough to ride on the scooter to the nearest fresh juice shop.
Thankfully, while I was there, I found out that they could do home deliveries. For the next 10 days, I had 3 fresh juices made and delivered. I just picked one that was fully green, one that was fully red, and one that was fully orange and hoped that I was getting enough nutrients that way. I couldn't handle the thought of eating, so I just drank my meals.
The next thing I did on that very first day was message a whole bunch of my friends. Having lived on the island for a year, I did know quite a few people. And while I knew lots of friendly people and acquaintances, there weren't that many like really true friends.
There ended up being two guys who helped quite a lot, and in this post, I want to talk about one who gave me the most support. His name was Harry.
Harry was a wealthy young man from the UK. He was down-to-earth and kind, and yet he had the confidence of someone much older than a guy in his mid-20's. To this day, I still have no idea why I wasn't attracted to him. We were both single and got along well, but he just seemed more like a little brother than a potential lover.
When I sent out that message to all of these friends, many of them came over just once to see how I was doing. Some of them genuinely seemed to want to know that I was okay. Others looked like they were ticking a box, being a good person, doing it out of obligation.
Harry, however, decided he was going to visit me every day. He'd get some work done doing whatever it was that he did that I did not understand, and then he would show up at the place where I was housesitting with a giant bag of coconuts.
My brightly coloured juices were supplemented with fresh coconut water, and before too long, I started eating the flesh of the fruit as well.
I never really got why Harry did this every day, and why his behaviour was so different to so many of the other 'friends' I'd reached out to. But I was extremely grateful.
Who knows, maybe he was simply built to care for people, and this was his opportunity to express it.
He never asked for anything in return. He just helped me until I was better. And when it was his turn to leave the island, I bid him a teary, grateful farewell.
[This photo must have been taken on my shitty little phone I had at the time, by some generous person at Harry's farewell party. Thank you to whomever they were.]
This post was my answer to this question that was posed in the Ladies of Hive Community this week:
Did someone support you during your hardest time? How did they help?
There's still time to write your own post - if you're a woman and you care about writing a decent story for us. Yes? Check out all the details here.
