I would like to share this story that I have kept warm in my memory for many years.

 

The name of the story is "Rayon de Soleil" (ray of sunshine).

 

It was a long time ago, when my husband worked for a French hotel company in Romania, we lived in Bucharest with our two sons for a few years. The eldest was 4 years old and the youngest 9 months.
We lived in a small apartment in the hotel where my husband worked.

I remember that we had planned to spend a week skiing during the winter school holidays. One Sunday morning at 6am, we drove for four hours to Predeal, a mountain ski resort in Transylvania.
But before leaving, we had breakfast with hot drinks, fruits, and a basket of delicious croissants. I used to eat two croissants (they were so good !) and take the rest with me (I always saved croissants and kept them in my car to give to homeless children).

It is very cold in February, and our children wore warm clothes and ski gloves. The sky was dark and cloudy. It was starting to snow.

After leaving the hotel, our children were playing in the back seats of the car with toys. I had a few sandwiches for a later snack for them. At one point, we stopped at a red light and two little boys came over to beg for money. They were wearing light clothes and they weren't wearing gloves. I was shocked when I saw their hands so red and shaking. Fortunately, I found a pair of gloves in the glove compartment. I opened the window (we could feel the freezing wind coming into the car) and gave them to one of the children.

I asked our eldest son if he was ok to give his gloves to the other child and, of course, he gave them to him. I also gave them the croissants and the sandwiches.

When they saw the gloves and the food, their eyes were wide open, and they had a huge smile on their face. It was, for me, like seeing a beautiful ray of sunshine coming out of them.

They laughed and jumped for joy and left.

I will forever remember the happiness I could see in their eyes, simple happiness.