So I was taking a walk the other day, and I met this man, I mean I saw this man, he was just laying on a wall, just laying. I asked myself, what in the bloody hell is this man doing?
At the time it was hard to distinguish, if he was dead, alive or if the man was just taking a nap after a long day at work. I could not see his face, he had a long beard, and a hat covering his face.
I found it a bit uncomfortable asking, but I could not keep myself from doing it, so I asked, “What are you doing sir?”, he did not respond, so I asked again, “What are you doing sir?”, I got no answer this time either. But suddenly, he coughed, he coughed again, then the man started laughing, or at least I thought he did, it became very obvious that the man was crying.
He asked me, “How old are you, kid?”, I presented myself, told him I was 16, I told him that my dad had left me and my mother when I was little, that we were very poor, and I almost forgot to tell him my name was Michael.
He told me his name was Henry.
Henry looked if there were anyone around, there was no one, only me and Henry.
Then Henry turned his head towards me and said, “I want to help you, I want to help you and your mother.”.
I thanked him, but, how could he help us?
Henry reached for his briefcase, he handed it to me, “Michael, I want you to go home now, when you get home I want you and your mother to open the briefcase, open it together”.
I promised Henry I would do that, and so I did.
We said goodbye, he wished me good luck, I shook his hand, 3 minutes later I was on the first bus home.
When I came hwereI told my mother I wanted to show her something, so we sat down on our couch, I placed the briefcase on the coffee table.
Unlocked it, opened it, and in the briefcase, there was a letter, I started reading it out loud.
“Dear stranger, if you are reading this I gave you my briefcase, today I was diagnosed with cancer, the doctors told me I had less than one week left, I do not have any children, my wife died a long time ago, But never mind You were gifted my briefcase because I wanted to help you, and do good in the few days I got left, and change someone’s life, so that is my story.
I wish you the best of luck and remember the purpose of life is to have fun, Henry. PS. Remove the blanket”.
I had a hard time reading the letter, and we felt lucky that Henry wanted us to have his briefcase, so we removed the blanket just like he wrote in the letter.
And under that blanket, there were stacks upon stacks of money, more money than we had seen.
Mum was crying, I was crying too, we hugged.
We were really happy, but at the same time really sad, Henry seemed like a great person.
Henry passed away a few days later, he died on a Friday.
Till this day we thank Henry every day, he really did change our lives.