Each and every day, most of us try to pay people a kindness when we can.
Even in the smallest ways.
We smile at passersby, hold the door for the next person, chitchat with someone on the grocery line, or let someone drive ahead of us when we’re on the road.
But we never know how even the smallest gesture can change someone’s day or even their entire lives.
It’s likely that Texas native Brooke Ochoa had no idea the impact she would have on an elderly woman named Delores when she invited Delores to dine with her.
Brooke decided that she would head to a restaurant for lunch one day.
On her way inside she saw an elderly woman walking toward the restaurant and stopped and to hold the door for the woman.
“Today I went to eat at a restaurant for lunch and I saw this elder lady coming from afar so I waited to hold the door for her, she was very thankful and sweet,” Brooke recalled in a Facebook post.
Brooke overheard that the woman was going to be eating alone.
She figured she might as well invite the woman to eat with her since she was going to be eating alone as well.
“She then told the waitress, ‘table for one’, so I waited and hesitated but then I walked over and said, ‘I’m eating by myself too would you like to have lunch together?’ She was ecstatic!”
The woman was taken aback by Brooke’s gesture of kindness. She was overjoyed to have some company and for very good reason.
Brooke learned that the woman’s name was Delores and that she was pretty lonely.
Delores was left all alone after the death and institutionalization of some of her family members. That’s why she was so happy to have the company. She’s wasn’t used to being alone.
“Come to find out she spent the last decade living with her mom who recently passed away and her aunt who recently was put into a nursing home, so she has been having a hard time being alone,” Brooke wrote. “We had a wonderful talk, and she just kept smiling and saying thank you for listening to me, which made me smile too!”
While Delores was extremely grateful to have a lunch buddy, Brooke says that it made her day just as much as it made Delores’ day.
“Her words healed my heart just as much as I healed her lonely one. By far the best decision I’ve made all year!!! Her name is Delores, and we will be having lunch every Thursday from now on,” Brook wrote.
Brooke’s post ended up going viral and was shared 279,000 times on Facebook and liked more than 2.2 million times.
Many applauded Brooke for taking the time out to make a stranger feel special.
“Thank you for sharing your story it shows that there are a lot of good people in this world,” one person on Facebook wrote.
“You are a lovely kind young lady. God Bless you for your kindness,” said another.
Unfortunately, Brooke and Delores didn’t get to share too many more lunches after.
Delores passed away shortly after the post was written.
But her and Brooke’s story has reached millions and is still inspiring people today. Read Brooke’s original post below.
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https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=979039778813010&set=a.492849867432006&type=3&theater
