Since last spring, I started to get really touching surprises. If last year my little cousins from Bucharest sent me some surprise spring gifts via mail, this year I got something even more touching that made me say faith in humanity restored.
I live in a block of flats, so my neighborhood is kinda crowded: lots of cars, litter everywhere and so on. We are way too busy or ignorant to pay attention to the small things. But there is a man who takes “care” of our neighborhood.
I don’t know his name, nor his story. All that I know is that I see him every single day sweeping out the litter on the sidewalks of the neighborhood. He listens to a small portable radio and he comments what his hearing out loud, without being embarrassed that someone may judge him. He listens to audio plays. He is homeless.
He always carries a plastic bag with him, a broom and the small, portable radio. Some of my neighbors give him food or money, but he continues to show up every single day to clean up. During winter he removed the snow around the cars and nobody told him to.
Last night, I was getting back home when I heard him walking behind me: “Miss, miss… you dropped something.” I ignored him because I though he wasn’t talking to me, but he continued to call me, telling me that I dropped something. I turned around because he was very insistent and he told me again that I dropped something and he handled me a tiny envelope with a mărțișor inside of it.
On the 1st of March girls get small presents that we call them mărțisoare. Is a tradition that celebrates the spring’s arrival. Men give this kind of tiny items wishing the ladies kind thoughts and a beautiful spring.
I was shocked when I saw the tiny envelope pointing at me. This homeless man, who has probably seen me passing around, stopped me to give me that tiny gift out of the blue. I have never talked to him. I’ve judged him because he was spending time cleaning randomly the sidewalks while he was listening to radio. I couldn’t say nothing beside a shy “Thank you, sir!“.
I was so touched by his gesture and I will remember this always with a smile on my face.
2 comments
you never know what’s behind a quiet person 😀
True, but I never heard that something bad happaned regarding that man.