Not enough years ago, I was sitting outside my second story apartment on the stairs outside my door. It was late on Christmas Eve. My son was five years old. I was crying.
For his birthday, I had been creative and bought drinks and cookies and some little gifts and wrapped them in foil [like a robot] to disguise the sad truth that I couldn't afford real gifts.
I was pretty good at getting creative to hide my financial stress from my son. He loved his giant robot so much, he didn't want to take it apart to get his gifts, at first.
But, by the time Christmas rolled around, I was so run down, so sad and broke, that I couldn't find the strength to do something that creative again.
So I sat outside trying to hide the choking sobbing tears, afraid of disappointing my sweet, sweet son on Christmas morning.
Then, out of the dark, someone very quickly ran up to my steps and threw two large black trash bags on my landing, then ran away.
I was too sad to even be startled. In fact, for quite some time I just sat there staring at the bags. After a while, I uncurled my legs from under my chin, and peeked into the bags. There were gifts and gifts and gifts, for my son, and for me. Beautifully wrapped.
I cried even harder, and felt so undeserving, but so relieved and happy at the same time. It took me an hour to gently remove each gift and place them under our tree.
The sweetest part was my son. He was of course thrilled to open his gifts, but more than that, he was happy for me. He had never seen me receive a gift, ever. He was more thrilled to open my gifts with me.
I still have no idea who could have given me the gifts. I had no close friends, or neighbors. I worked hard at my job to hide my struggles, and my family is not close. I did not have a church or any other connections. To this day, I wonder what angel came and gave us those gifts. And now, any time I have anything extra I am generous, and everyone in my family does Christmas Angels... but I can never repay the kindness I needed so badly in that night of utter despair.
From: “What is the nicest thing a stranger ever did for you?” posted on Quora 8/17/18.
Video: by Matthias Groeneveld from Pixabay.
Comments