Brighten Your Day

S.B. and I were sunburned and dirty from traveling and being outside all day. We stood in the restaurant parking lot deciding, "do we really want to go into a public place looking like this?" Together we decided, "sure, lets go in, we are starving." That phrase changed us forever...

We were walking to our seat in the crowded restaurant and we hear a shout, "HEY, I LIKE YOUR SHIRT!" I knew right away who he was talking to. We stopped right in the middle of the isle as a young disabled man reached for S.B. and said, "My favorite colors are in your tie-dye shirt, I LOVE green and blue and yellow too, will you get me a real one from the 60's?" So we talked about the hippie tie-dye, where we were all from, our jobs, etc. We said goodbye to him and told him to enjoy his dinner.

Before we even reached our seats, I turned to S.B. and said, "if our clothes were not at the motel, you could've changed and gave him your tye-dye shirt." He said, "you know, I have a black t-shirt under the drivers seat, stay here I'll be right back." So, I moved out of the isle and watched him through the window as he changed right there in the parking lot. As he walked backed inside, he mouthed "are you ready for this?" We gave each other a thumbs up and proceeded toward the young man.

Handing the folded dirty shirt to the young man I said, "This is for you to take home, make sure you wash it, he's had it on all day and it is dirty." "THANK YOU, I will wash it, I like it, thank you!!" he said. His mother said thank you to us also. S.B. and I wished them both well and walked away.

As we sat down at our table, we knew we would never see that special young man again. The whole entire time we ate, he kept looking over at us and smiling. It was very heart warming to know that that young man would talk about this for a very long time. We will never forget this moment, S.B. was 364 days into being 49 years old; for his 50th birthday he gave a stranger the shirt right off of his back.

As the young man and his mother were leaving, he never looked back. He stood proud with the largest smile on his face, the dirty tye-dye folded shirt over his left arm and his right hand on top of it.