Personal Reflection

A Simple Gesture

I was on my way home when I noticed a boy in front of me had tripped on a rock and dropped all of the books he held onto. I proceeded to help the boy pickup the strewn articles. As we were heading in the same direction, I helped to lift a part of his burden. I found out the boy’s name was Victor, that he appreciated literature, and that he was lacking behind in his studies and that family turmoil has added upon his predicament. We reached his residence, and I was invited in for drinks and some checkers. The evening quickly passed by, and I had to leave. Almost certainly, we quickly became an inseparable bunch. We never stopped seeing one another, had dinner with our families a few times, then we both succesfully graduated from high school. At long last. One day, Victor pulled me out of our clan of friends and asked me if we could talk. He reminded me of that fateful day years ago when we encountered one another.
Coincidentally he was cleaning out his locker to allow the next person to use it. He red away some of his mother's sleeping pills and was going home to commit suicide. But after we spent some time together talking and laughing, he realized that if he had killed myself, he would have missed that time and so many others that might follow. Then it hit me.

When I picked up those books that day, I did a lot more than picking up his books, I saved his life.

So, I learned that the little gestures could have really helped make someone turn over a new leaf and to not resent his or her actions later on, and has still impacted me deeply until this day.