A woman was watching from afar as an older gentleman was setting up his own table at a restaurant. He was arranging the chairs, adding decorations to the table, and even placed a cake in the center.
The man had arrived early to get the table ready for his 61st birthday celebration. He waited and waited for his family to show up — but no one came.
As the woman continued to watch, her and the other patrons in the restaurant started to wonder what was going on. As time continued to pass, he sat alone at the table set up for a party. Not one single family member had shown up.
It turns out that the man’s name is Eduviges Villatoro, he noticed the stares coming from everyone in the restaurant and decided to stand up and say something.
The 61-year-old man stood up from his chair, cleared his throat, and made an announcement to the entire dining room.
“It’s my birthday today, I’m 61-years-old and I prepared for a feast tonight. I bought a cake because I was supposed to meet my family here to celebrate my birthday. I hoped that my children, grandchildren and my wife would come. But as you can see, no one turned up,” the man said, according to the watching guest Patty Rodriguez, who shared the incident on Facebook.
He continued to speak as he had tears welling up in his eyes.
“That is why I now ask if anyone wants to join me to celebrate my birthday and sing ‘Happy Birthday’. I would be eternally grateful.”
Strangers from all of the room began to leave their tables to join Villatoro for his birthday celebration.
Even though no one had ever met this man before, their kindness and compassion immediately shined through. Villatoro went from having an empty, heartbreaking supposed celebration to the surprise party of a lifetime.
As it turns out, the entire ordeal was actually a social experiment to see how people would react to this situation. As you can clearly see, there are a lot of wonderful, compassionate people in the world. Regardless if it was an experiment or not — faith in humanity is restored.
Patty Rodriguez’s full Facebook post is below. It’s heartwarming and reassuring to know that there are still so many kind people in the world.
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