Day 139

I read this story on a website called Suspended Coffee and had to share it. The story is about a waitress who witnessed something amazing. I paraphrased her story:

I was a waitress in a breakfast restaurant a year or so ago and a man and his son used to come in from time to time. ‘Male bonding time’ the father called it. They always came in dressed in nice tidy clothes, typical of an upper class family. This particular morning they arrived around 6:30am and sat at their usual seat, minutes later, the father gets up and goes back outside, returning five minutes or so later with a boy of similar age to the son (around 15). This was odd as the boy was wearing old dirty clothes, looks tired and run down. I catch him introducing the boy to his son. This took me back as I assumed given his age that he must have been either family or a friend. So I said “I see we have another quest this morning”. The son and his father were pleasant as always as I take their orders, with the other boy only ordering a shake without lifting his eyes from the table. The father ordered another basic meal for him also. The boy gobbled down the food. As the time passed, the boy opened up and they were all laughing like they knew each other forever. When they left, the father said to the boy: Don’t be a stranger. The next time the man and his son came in, I asked him about that morning. The man said “Johnny was a boy we met that morning. He was sitting around the corner asking for money. I invited him in and he refused. I eventually convinced him to come in if I gave him $50”. He explained that Johnny did not have any family to speak of; his mother ran away when he as three; his father was killed when he was twelve. He went to live with his grandparents who need more help than he can give and when they moved into a rest home, Johnny was forgotten about. The son then said that his dad started to pay for him to go to soccer training and to his same school and eventually, his dad convinced him to move into their house, in the space room, while working at local supermarket to pay board. Even though Johnny will be a year behind the other kids at school because he still has a lot to learn, he will at least be safe and has a new family who will love him and look out for him. This man and his son changed this boy’s life.