"My faith in humanity has been restored": Stranger's heartfelt gesture leaves young boy in tears on birthday
The kindness of strangers has made a young boy’s birthday one to remember
Chloe Wheeler’s “faith in humanity has been restored” after a stranger made her son’s birthday by gifting him £5 - sparking a domino effect of people wanting to make his day one to remember.
The 25-year-old took to Facebook on April 19 in a bid to thank a “lovely” lady who gave her son, Roman-Francis Lock, the gift for his birthday after volunteering to take a family picture while they were at The Farmhouse, in Burrfields Road.
The mum-of-three told The News: “I don’t have a good family support network and I knew it just being us in the morning would bother him and I was trying to think of ways to make it a big deal so he didn’t notice it’s the same people he sees everyday. He had no presents or calls from anybody else and one of his friends was supposed to come with us but couldn’t make it. He spent the morning crying.
“We went to The Farmhouse and I wanted to get a nice photo - he absolutely hates photos but there was this lady who came over and said ‘you have to make memories’ and took a lovely photo of us. When she found out it was his birthday, she gave him £5 - he cried and said ‘I thought I didn’t have any friends’ and it made his day.”
After being moved by the encounter, Chloe was then inundated with people wishing Roman-Francis a happy birthday, with many asking her to set up an Amazon wishlist so they could get him a present.
Blown away by the kindess of complete strangers, the Cosham mum said her son, who has auditory memory difficult, was in floods of tears at how many people knew it was his birthday.
She added: “I put a post up on social media to try and find the lady and 3,000 people have looked at it and there are 900 comments all together and people have bought him gifts and sent him cards. It makes me want to cry. It makes me feel whole because I can’t replace grandparents, aunties, uncles or cousins so these people’s kindness made me feel whole.”
Chloe also said everything on the Amazon wishlist has been bought, with the gifts and cards due to arrive in the next few days.
She continued: “The gifts are lovely but what it has taught him is just incredible - you can’t buy that.
“I don’t know how I could show all of these people how grateful we are. I am so thankful.”