In a small town in Oklahoma, people would often go about their business and not pay attention to one another. This was a norm until one day, an 11-year-old boy named Tom decided to change that.
While all of his friends played baseball after school in the afternoon, Tom would spend time in the library. He enjoyed reading in peace, as he liked learning about the different morals he could pick up from the books. That week, he was reading “Good People Everywhere” by Lynea Gillen.
For illustration purposes only | Source: Pexels
The book teaches children to be caring, kind, and grateful to everyone around them. It shows how people are good, as they choose to do things that make everyone’s lives easier, such as taking care of others, building other people’s houses, and delivering their babies.
As he walked home from the library, he walked past the local grocery store where he saw an old lady struggling to carry her grocery bags. The woman swayed from side to side as she walked.
Several people walked past her, and while they noticed she was struggling, they didn’t stop to help. Tom decided to run up to her and take the bags from her hands. “Let me walk you home,” he told the old lady.
The woman, Linda, was extremely grateful to the boy that she was on the brink of tears. “Oh, dear. You are heaven-sent. Thank you, sweet boy,” she said.
Tom smiled at her, offering his arm to guide her. She linked her arm with his, and they walked alongside each other as Tom carried the bags.
That evening, Linda was cooking dinner for herself when she saw a poor, homeless man outside her window. He was standing on the side of the road looking thin and hungry.
She suddenly remembered the young boy who had helped her earlier that day. A sudden thought came to her head, and she walked towards her front door. “Would you like to have some dinner?” she asked as she approached the man.
For illustration purposes only | Source: Pexels
The man was surprised that someone had spoken to him. He smiled at her and nodded. “Thank you, ma’am. I haven’t eaten in days. Thank you so much.”
Linda set up another place at the table for her guest. The man, who introduced himself as James, ate half the food on his plate for dinner and wanted to leave half for him to eat at breakfast.
“Don’t worry. There’s still enough food for you to have for breakfast. Go ahead and finish your dinner,” Linda told the man. He smiled again, grateful for the old lady’s generosity.
The following day, James was sitting outside, eating his breakfast, when a man in a business suit walked by. A couple of moments later, he noticed that the man’s wallet had fallen out of his pocket as he turned at the curb.
He picked it up and was surprised to see that the wallet was filled with hundred-dollar bills. With this money, he could rent himself a room for a couple of nights and buy himself food for weeks, James thought.
However, he remembered the old woman who helped him last night. He saw the man’s figure getting further, so he decided to run after him. He caught up with the man and returned the wallet.
“You dropped your wallet, sir,” he said, handing it back. Surprised, the man in the suit was grateful because he was on the way to the hospital to pay for the treatment of his ill mother.
He handed James some money, introducing himself as Richard. While James was hesitant at first, he accepted the money gracefully. “Thank you for being honest. May you be blessed,” Richard told James before walking away.
For illustration purposes only | Source: Pexels
Richard was able to pay for the treatment of his mother, and he took her home that same day for her to recover fully in his care.
A couple of days later, Richard, who owned a construction company, was looking for some land to build new luxury homes. On the outskirts of town, he saw a mother and her 11-year-old son – it was Tom and his mother. They lived in a small trailer.
“Tom, where are you going?” Richard overheard the mother ask her son.
“I’m going to the library, mom. It’s so tiny in here that I can’t take any of the books home. I’ll just read there instead if that’s okay,” he responded.
His mom felt terrible that she could not support her son’s love for reading by having a little reading nook at home. The trailer was all they could afford.
As Richard overhead the conversation, he suddenly remembered his own childhood. His mom was also poor, and while he loved reading, he could not own any books because they didn’t have money to buy them.
For illustration purposes only | Source: Pexels
Richard approached Tom and his mom, introducing himself as a businessman working on a development nearby. While speaking to them, he found out that they were living in the trailer because it was the only property they had.
Richard started frequenting the area. Just a couple of blocks away from where the trailer was parked, he was developing a brand new luxury home that he planned to put up on sale. He began to visit Tom and his mom, talking to them about random things.
“What do you want to be when you grow up, Tom?” he asked the boy during one of his visits.
“I’d like to become a veterinarian. I love reading books about animals, so I go to the library to read a couple of them,” Tom revealed.
Upon learning that Tom wanted to have a bigger space with a reading nook, Richard decided to give them a new home, as he was capable of doing so.
The following day, he came to the trailer and told Tom and his mom to move out. Tom’s mom was angered. “Is this why you’ve been visiting us? So you can lure us out of our trailer? How could you? Tom really liked you,” she said.
For illustration purposes only | Source: Pexels
Richard shook his head. “You need to move out of here to have a new home,” he told them. “Would you please come with me? I’ll show you,” he said.
The rich man took Tom and his mother out for a ride. He drove them to another part of town and stopped near a big house. “This is yours,” Richard said, handing Tom’s mom a key.
“Are you being serious?” she asked him. Richard nodded.
“You see, I develop houses for a living and earn from it, but I could never let go of this particular house because it was my mother’s. People were buying it for $265,000, but I couldn’t get myself to sell it. While I didn’t want to live in it, I wanted to save it for something special,” he explained.
Tom and his mother cried. They were grateful and happy for the opportunity and could not understand why God suddenly blessed them with such a gift. “We did nothing to deserve this,” Tom’s mother whispered.
Little did they know, all of this started with a simple good deed from Tom. Every good deed makes a difference, and people are inspired to pay it forward.
What can we learn from this story?
- Don’t let the chain of kindness end with you. When you experience an act of kindness from someone, pay it forward so that the chain of kindness never breaks.
- When you do good, life will find a way to return your kindness. What goes around comes around. Life will find a way to return your kindness to you one way or another.
