Most friendships often start as two strangers finding that connection.
Perhaps we went to a friend’s party or someone we got close to at work. Or it can be utterly random, like someone we bumped into along the way or a stranger that we shared a table with in a jam-packed café.
It can be awkward or weird, but it makes a beautiful friendship most of the time.
Once we start getting to know the person more, you’ll find a deeper connection between the two of you. You’ll discover how you have lots of similarities. But making friends with strangers is easier when done personally. How about if it’s on the phone?
These two strangers found each other through a wrong number call twenty years ago.
Mike Moffitt received a call from a woman one day who immediately realized she got the wrong number. This happened several times, and the woman would always drop the call right away. Until one time, he stopped her before she could put down the phone.
That’s when Mike found out he was talking to a certain Gladys Hankerson.
Gladys was from Delray Beach, Florida, and she said she’s been trying to reach her sister in Maryland. It turned out she dialed the wrong area code; 401 instead of 410. The numbers are close enough, but Maryland and Rhode Island are hundreds of miles away from each other.
Mike took this opportunity to talk to Gladys and get to know her more.
And this started their 20 years of friendship. According to Gladys, this friendship came when she needed someone to talk to. She came from a divorce and had just lost her son.
For Gladys, her friendship with Mike was a blessing in disguise.
Since then, she called Mike regularly, and the two would talk for hours. She said that he just always lifted his spirits. The time he spent talking and sympathizing was all that mattered to Gladys.
And just this Thanksgiving, Mike visited Gladys in her home.
He was on vacation with his family and thought it’d be great to drop by and finally meet the other person on the phone. She didn’t know he was coming, so the meeting came to her as a surprise.
Mike knocked at her home in Delray Beach with some flowers in hand.
Her daughter answered and walked him through the door. He introduced himself simply as “I’m Mike from Rhode Island,” and she had the most heartwarming reply.
Mike said that all she said was, “I am blessed.”
Mike and Gladys want us to learn from their friendship that compassion and kindness bring out the best in people. That even if it was as simple as answering the call, you don’t know how much you have lifted someone’s spirits.
“I wished more people could be like that. That’d be so nice. The world would be better; people would be better,” Gladys told WESH 2.
Their friendship lasted for 20 years (and counting!), and they now treat each other as family.
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