I Just Helped Him Cry

An elderly gentleman who recently lost his wife was visited by the four year old boy from next door.

Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman's yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there.

Later when the body went home, his mother asked what he had said to the neighbor. The little boy replied, "Nothing, I just helped him cry."

Flowers on the Bus

Author Unknown

We were a very motley crowd of people who took the bus every day that summer 33 years ago. During the early morning ride from the suburb, we sat drowsily with our collars up to our ears, a cheerless and taciturn bunch.

One of the passengers was a small gray haired man who took the bus to the center for senior citizens every morning. He walked with a stoop and a sad look on his face when he, with some difficulty, boarded the bus and sat down alone behind the driver.

No one ever paid very much attention to him. Then one July morning he said good morning to the driver and smiled softly as he went through the bus before he sat down. The driver nodded guardedly. The rest of us were silent.

The next day, the old man boarded the bus energetically, smiled and said in a loud voice, "And a very good morning to you all!"

Some of us looked up, amazed, and murmured "Good morning," in reply.

The following weeks we were more alert. Our friend was now dressed in a nice old suit and a wide out-of-date tie. The thin hair had been carefully combed. He said good morning to us every day and we gradually began to nod and talk to each other.

One morning he had a bunch of wild flowers in his hand. They were already dangling a little because of the heat. The driver turned around smilingly and asked, "Have you got yourself a girlfriend, Charlie?" We never got to know if his name really was "Charlie", but he nodded shyly and said yes.

The other passengers whistled and clapped at him. Charlie bowed and waved the flowers before he sat down on his seat. Every morning after that Charlie always brought a flower. Some of the regular passengers began bringing him flowers for his bouquet, gently nudged him and said shyly, "Here." Everyone smiled.

The men started to jest about it, talk to each other, and share the newspaper. The summer went by, and autumn was closing in, when one morning Charlie wasn't waiting at his usual stop. When he wasn't there the next day and the day after that, we started wondering if he was sick or - hopefully - on holiday somewhere.

When we came nearer to the center for senior citizens, one of the passengers asked the driver to wait. We all held our breaths when she went to the door. Yes, the staff said, they knew who we were talking about. The elderly gentleman was fine, but he hadn't been coming to the center that week. One of his very close friends had died at the weekend. They expected him back on Monday. How silent we were the rest of the way to work.

The next Monday Charlie was waiting at the stop, stooping a bit more, a little bit more gray, and without a tie. He seemed to have shrunk again. Inside the bus was a silence akin to that in a church. Even though no one had talked about it, all those of us, who he had made such an impression on that summer, sat with our eyes filled with tears and a bunch of wild flowers in our hands.

It Was Worth it.

Horror gripped the heart of the World War 1 soldier as he saw his lifelong friend fall in battle. Caught in a trench with continuous gunfire whizzing over his head, the soldier asked his leutenant if he might go out into the "no man's land" between the trenches to bring his fallen comrade back.

"You can go," said the lieutenant, "but I don't think it will be worth it. Your friend is probably dead and you may throw your life away."

The lieutenant's advice didn't matter, and the soldier went anyway. Miraculously he managed to reach his friend, hoist him onto his shoulder and bring him back to their company's trench. As the two of them tumbled in together to the bottom of the trench, the officer checked the wounded soldier, and then looked kindly at his friend.

"I told you it wouldn't be worth it," he said. "Your friend is dead and you are mortally wounded."

"It was worth it, though, sir," said the soldier.

"What do you mean worth it?" responded the Lieutenant, "Your friend is dead"

"YES, Sir," the private answered. "But it was worth it because when i got to him, he was still alive and I had the satisfaction of hearing him say, "JIM...I KNEW YOU'D COME."

Faithful Friends

Brownie and Spotty were neighbor dogs who met every day to play together. Like pairs of dogs you can find in most any neighborhood, these two loved each other and played together so often that they had worn a path through the grass of the field between their respective houses. One evening, Brownie's family noticed that Brownie hadn't returned home. They went looking for him with no success. Brownie didn't show up the next day, and, despite their efforts to find him, by the next week he was still missing.

Curiously, Spotty showed up at Brownie's house alone, barking, whining, and generally pestering Brownie's human family. Busy with their own lives, they just ignored the nervous little neighbor dog. Finally, one morning Spotty refused to take "no" for an answer. Ted, Brownie's owner, was steadily harassed by the furious, adamant little dog. Spotty followed Ted about, barking insistently, then darting back and forth to a nearby empty lot, as if to say, "Follow me! It's urgent!" Eventually, Ted followed the frantic Spotty across the empty lot, as Spotty paused to race back and bark encouragingly. The little dog led the man under a fence, past clumps of trees, to a desolate spot a half mile from the house.

There Ted found his beloved Brownie alive but one of his hind legs crushed in a steel leg-hold trap. Horrified, Ted wished he'd taken Spotty's earlier appeals seriously.

Then Ted noticed something quite remarkable... Spotty had done more than simply lead Brownie's human to his trapped friend. In a circle around the injured dog, Ted found an array of dog food and table scraps, which were identified as the remains of every meal Spotty had been fed that week!

Spotty had been visiting Brownie regularly, in a single minded quest to keep his friend alive by sacrificing his own comfort! Spotty had stayed with Brownie to protect him from predators, snuggling with him at night to keep him warm and nuzzling him to keep his spirits up. Brownie's leg was treated by a veterinarian and he recovered. For many years thereafter, the two families watched the faithful friends frolicking and chasing each other down that well-worn path between their houses.