Marlene Halley walked home from school every day past the same corner. It wasn\u2019t her real home. Marlene was an orphan, and after her parents\u2019 death, she\u2019d been placed in foster care.<\/p>\n
It was hard. It wasn\u2019t that her foster parents weren\u2019t nice, because they were. It was just that they had three other kids to care for. Sometimes Marlene felt very alone, until she met Brad.<\/p>\n
Marlene noticed Brad sitting on the corner of her street. He was wearing ragged clothes, and his hair and beard were shaggy and matted but his eyes were very sad.<\/p>\n
She knew what that sadness was. She\u2019d seen that same lost, bewildered look in her own mirror a thousand times.<\/p>\n
One day, Marlene plucked up her courage and talked to the man. \u201cHello,\u201d she said. \u201cDo you have a broken heart too?\u201d<\/p>\n
The man had been looking down, but he raised his head to stare at Marlene. \u201cA broken heart?\u201d he asked. \u201cYes, yes\u2026 But how do you know?\u201d<\/p>\n
Love gives us the courage to put aside our sorrows and live again.
\nMarlene sat down next to the man. \u201cI know because mine is broken too,\u201d she explained. \u201cI can see in your eyes that you can\u2019t go home, just like me.\u201d<\/p>\n
The man raised his hands to cover his face, and Marlene saw that his shoulders were shaking as if he were crying. She touched him gently. \u201cI\u2019m sorry,\u201d she said. \u201cI didn\u2019t mean to make you cry\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s OK,\u201d the man said. \u201cYou know, sometimes crying is good for you. Cleans out the cobwebs from the heart.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCobwebs?\u201d asked Marlene. \u201cYou have SPIDERS in your heart? Yuck! I hate spiders!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell,\u201d the man said. \u201cWhen your heart breaks, sometimes the cobwebs are all that keeps it together. And besides, I like spiders.\u201d<\/p>\n
Marlene giggled. \u201cEensy, Weensy spiders?\u201d she asked. \u201cNo, thank you!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m Brad,\u201d the man said. \u201cI\u2019ve been sitting in this corner for two years and no one has ever asked me\u2026or noticed that I was sad.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know\u2026\u201d Marlene said. \u201cI think people get scared when they see that someone is not happy. They think sadness is catching, like the flu.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo why are you sad?\u201d Brad asked Marlene. So the little girl told him all about her parents, and how she was all alone in the world, and how lonely she was.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut why do you sit here?\u201d she asked Brad.<\/p>\n
He turned his face away, ashamed. \u201cI wait for people to give me money\u2026\u201d he said. \u201cSo I can buy food.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you hungry?\u201d Marlene asked. \u201cI\u2019ve got food!\u201d She reached into her school bag and took out a squishy sandwich with the filling coming out of the sides.<\/p>\n
Brad accepted the sandwich and told Marlene it was delicious. \u201cI made it myself,\u201d Marlene said proudly. \u201cIt\u2019s my own special recipe. Peanut butter and mayo!\u201d<\/p>\n
From then on, not a day went by that Marlene didn\u2019t stop by on her way home to bring Brad a sandwich, and to have a chat with her friend. She just couldn\u2019t imagine her day without Brad anymore.<\/p>\n
But then one day, when she got to the corner, he just wasn\u2019t there! She ran to the nearby caf\u00e9 and asked the waiter, \u201cDid you see my friend, Brad?\u201d<\/p>\n
The waiter said, \u201cYou mean the homeless guy who sits on that corner?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes,\u201d Marlene said. \u201cThat\u2019s Brad.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you Marlene?\u201d the waiter asked. \u201cHe left a letter for you.\u201d<\/p>\n
He handed Marlene a creased piece of paper. Marlene unfolded it and read: \u201cDear Marlene, I\u2019m sorry, but I had to go away to mend my heart. I promise that I will be back one day soon. Your friend, Brad.\u201d<\/p>\n
Marlene was very sad, and very lonely again. Every time she walked past Brad\u2019s corner, she cried, which meant she cried just about every day.<\/p>\n
Marlene\u2019s foster mom scolded her, \u201cStop crying! You\u2019ll wash the blue right out of your eyes. Why do you cry so much, anyway?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMy only friend is gone,\u201d Marlene said. \u201cAnd I don\u2019t think I\u2019ll ever see him again. My mom and dad said they\u2019d come back, but they never did. I don\u2019t think Brad will come back either.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Marlene was wrong because eighteen months later, Brad came back. Marlene saw a big fancy car parked outside her foster parents\u2019 door, and when she walked in, Brad was there!<\/p>\n
He looked very different. His face was smooth and his hair was cut and he was wearing very nice clothes. But despite the differences, Marlene knew him straight away because he still had the same kind, sad eyes.<\/p>\n
\u201cBrad!\u201d she cried and ran to hug him. \u201cWhy did you go away?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou know,\u201d Brad said. \u201cA few years ago, I was a happy man. I painted pictures that people wanted to buy, and my wife and I were going to have a baby.<\/p>\n \u201cBut when the time came for our baby to be born, something went very wrong. My wife and the baby died, and I think part of me died too. I couldn\u2019t paint anymore.<\/p>\n \u201cSo I just gave up on life, and on myself \u2014 until I met you, Marlene. When you gave me those peanut butter and mayo sandwiches, you did more than feed my body, you fed my soul.<\/p>\n \u201cI decided I wanted to give you something, too. So I went to a friend who owns an art gallery and I begged for work so I could buy canvases and paints, and I started painting again.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen my friend saw my new work, he was very excited. He said my painting was even better than before, and he put them in his gallery. And you know what? People started buying them!<\/p>\n \u201cThen I had a show\u2026Well, to make a long story short, I got myself a house and some clothes, and I went to Child Services. I qualified as a foster parent.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to ask you if you want to be my little girl, Marlene. If you do, they say that in a year\u2019s time, I can adopt you, and we can be a family!\u201d<\/p>\n Marlene started to cry so hard that Brad grew alarmed. \u201cMy mommy and daddy said they\u2019d come back and they didn\u2019t,\u201d she sobbed. \u201cYou promised, and you came back, you really came back!\u201d<\/p>\n Brad gave Marlene a big hug and said, \u201cMarlene, I promise you that from now on, I\u2019ll never go away again. We are going to be a family!\u201d<\/p>\n What can we learn from this story?<\/strong><\/p>\n We have to look past appearances to see into someone\u2019s heart.<\/strong>\u00a0Marlene saw that Brad was sad and lonely, and started talking to him, while most people simply walked on by. A young orphaned girl who shares her food with a homeless beggar on the street near her house is stunned when he returns to adopt her. Marlene Halley walked home from school every day past the same corner. It wasn\u2019t her real home. Marlene was an orphan, and after her parents\u2019 death, she\u2019d been placed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":338,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-337","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-daily-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailynewsintime.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailynewsintime.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailynewsintime.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailynewsintime.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailynewsintime.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailynewsintime.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":339,"href":"https:\/\/dailynewsintime.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337\/revisions\/339"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailynewsintime.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailynewsintime.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailynewsintime.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailynewsintime.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/iPHyMLz.jpg?w=1160&ssl=1\")
<\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n
\nLove gives us the courage to put aside our sorrows and live again.<\/strong>\u00a0Marlene inspired Brad to start painting again and take back his life.
\nShare this story with your friends. It might brighten their day and inspire them.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"