Recently a friend of mine posted this video on her Facebook page. It is of a little boy who has lost both his parents, and one day he decided he was sick and tired of seeing everyone around him sad. So he bought a lot of tiny little toys, and started giving them out to random adults. The reactions range from smiles to hugs to tears. It’s a really moving bit of footage. What an amazing kid.
This video brought tears to my eyes, but not for the reason one might expect. It reminded me of a story that my late boyfriend once told me. He said his mother suffered from depression, and as the oldest child living at home, he felt a responsibility to try to do something about it. But he was just a little boy. So he decided to try to make her happy in the way that things made him happy at the time. Whenever he got allowance money, he’d go out and buy a little toy, a trinket, really, and he would give it to her. A little puzzle. A plastic car. Anything, anything, to make her smile.
God, that story still makes me cry. The thought of this powerless little boy trying so hard to make things better for his mom makes me want to travel back in time and hug him. I want to take all his worries away.
It might be a coincidence, but it doesn’t surprise me much that my boyfriend developed severe and debilitating asthma the same year his parents got divorced. He struggled to breathe for the rest of his life, and in the end, that’s what killed him. There was nothing I could have done to stop it as much as I desperately wish I could have, so I sort of understand how that helpless little boy felt.
On the first of his birthdays that we celebrated as a couple, one of the things I got him was a little toy. I wanted to make up for some of the toys he gave away as a child. I think that meant a lot to him.
Rest in Peace, Chuck. You can breathe easy now.
![[image credit: wellesleyparade.com]](https://theviewfromadrawbridge.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/toys.jpg)
The View from a Drawbridge 
You were there loving him and that is more help than you can imagine. Maybe you couldn’t heal his lungs but every day you loved him was another day you were hugging and healing the heart of that powerless little boy.
Smile though your heart is aching…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UN8oLGBNXpE…easier said than done especially as we get older. Strange that a comedian wrote a song about smiling that makes me cry.
Yes, he was the love of my life, and I always made sure he knew it. And that song always gets to me, too.
oh man… sniff… allergies…
Yeah, I suffer from those too sometimes. 🙂
ha
can anybody tell me where i can send the little boy toys to give out
They boy’s name is Jayden Hayes, and the story was done by CBS Evening News, on their segment called Steve Hartman On The Road. He lives near Savannah Georgia. CBS could probably tell you more. Hope that helps!