A lonely man who spent every holiday by himself gave his Thanksgiving turkey to a boy who was walking around without shoes. The next year, they all got together for Thanksgiving and all the other holidays.
Michael spent the day before Thanksgiving listening to his coworkers talk about what they had planned. Some of them were going back to where they grew up. Some were going to spend the holidays by the lake, while others were going to spend the holidays with their wives in fancy hotels.
Michael, on the other hand, was never the kind of person who went all out for the holidays. This was because he didn’t have a family of his own or a girlfriend to spend time with.
If he thought something was important enough to celebrate, he’d take himself out to a nice dinner at a fancy restaurant or go to Las Vegas by himself to let loose and relax.
He was meant to spend that Thanksgiving with his other single friend, but at the last minute, he told him he had met a girl, and they decided to spend the holidays together.
When Michael was young, his mother would also leave him with cousins while she went to work. She stopped coming back eventually, and when his aunt and uncle died, he had no family left to spend the holidays with.
On Thanksgiving, Michael looked at everything he had bought to make dinner and realised that it was too much for just him to eat. Then he had the idea to make a special dinner and take it to a homeless shelter he always passed on his way home from work.
Michael spent the whole afternoon cooking some of his favourite Thanksgiving meals to keep himself busy. He cooked a turkey, an apple pie, a dish with beef and mushrooms, and more. As he put all the food into foil bags to take to the shelter, he told himself, “I should have thought of this years ago!”
When he was ready, he walked to the shelter and sat down at a table with everyone to eat a hot meal. One of the boys at the shelter said, “Wow!” He said, “I’ve never had food like this before.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll keep bringing you meals during the holidays,” Michael told them. “Go ahead and eat,” he told the people who had come together. Michael was about to help himself to some food when he saw a boy sitting alone in the far corner of the room. The boy had no shoes on.
Michael put some turkey and other food on a plate and walked over to the boy to make him feel better. “Have a meal, young man,” he said as he handed him the plate.
“Where is your mother?” He was asked by Michael.
“She works all day to save money so that we can buy a good house. “She comes and gets me late at night and brings me back here in the morning,” the boy said softly. Michael saw himself in the child as soon as he said that.
When Michael was young, his mother would also leave him with cousins while she went to work. She stopped coming back eventually, and when his aunt and uncle died, he had no family left to spend the holidays with.
Michael promised to help the child because he didn’t want the same thing to happen to him. He waited for the boy’s mother to come back to the shelter, and when she did, he offered her a high-paying job with less hours.
When he told her she could work as Michael’s helper, she asked, “Would you really do that for me?”
“Oh, sure. “I need a secretary who works hard,” Michael said. “I heard from your son Damon that you work all day. By itself, that shows how hard you work.”
Lindy, Michael’s mum, couldn’t stop crying. She thanked Michael a lot, and after Thanksgiving, she went to work for him.
After a year, Michael is sitting with Damon and Lindy at his table at home. Since he fell in love with Lindy and they got married, he no longer had to spend the holidays alone or eat meals alone.
“Prayers before meals?” Before they ate their Thanksgiving meal, Lindy gave him a smile.
He gave them both a nod and held their hands. “Dear God, I thank you for giving us a place to live, tasty food to eat every day, and a family. Last year, you gave me the motivation to cook a meal for the homeless centre, which helped me find my own family. “I’m glad I’m not alone anymore,” he said in his prayer.
When he was done praying, Lindy and Damon gave him a hug. They told each other how much they loved each other and how grateful they were to have each other as a family.
That night, Michael did not have to go to sleep alone for the first time in a long time. He stayed up all night with his new family and watched movies with them until they all fell asleep in their living room, cuddled up in similar pyjamas.
What does this story teach us?
It’s never too late to start over. Michael spent every holiday alone because he thought he’d never find a family or someone special to share them with. When he met Damon and Lindy, he was finally able to find his own family.
What you send out into the world will come back to you in the end. Michael thought about giving the food to a shelter for the poor so it wouldn’t go to waste. In the end, his kindness came back to him in the form of a beautiful family who loved and cared for him every day.
