One small act of kindness by one small person can make a big difference.
After her parents’ business set up shop next to some train tracks in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a little girl named Rio began waving at the crew of a freight train that trundled by every day.
Every single day, Briana Shepard’s preschool daughter, Rio would stand in the window of their family business. It wasn’t so much the scenery that attracted the little one to the window, but an unlikely friendship with people she’d never met. Shepard’s little daughter was best friends with the train men.
The best part? She was their best friend as well.
It became her daily routine, the guys on the train would give the horn a blast to let her know they were approaching and she’d run to the window and they’d exchange waves. It was so charming that Rio’s mom would actually tear up almost every time.
This adorable tradition went on like clockwork for three years until one day, the little girl started school. Shepard remembers just how hard that transition was:
“Her transition to daily school hit me a little harder than I was expecting, but it hit me the hardest the first day the train came when she wasn’t there. They blew their whistles, they opened their windows, but I was the only one standing there just crying and weakly waving. The next day I made a sign. I simply wrote ‘She started school.’ I heard the whistle, ran to the window, and held up my sign. That was three weeks ago,” Shepard recalls.
The second day, Shepard put up a sign saying that her daughter had started school and that she would no longer be a fixture at the window, waving to her friends on the train. Thinking this would be the end of it, Briana, continued on at work hoping to soon put this beautiful memory behind her.
Little did she know that those at the train yard had missed her daughter’s presence, just as much as Shepard had. One of the conductors stopped by not long after:
“Today they’d had a short train, so they stopped down the tracks, walked to our building, and knocked on our door. Oh did I cry. They had seen my sign, but couldn’t make out what it said. They had assumed she’d started school, but had to make sure. He said that her waves had made their days. For three years they’d shared these moments.”
The conductor, wearing his bright yellow uniform, was there to let Shepard know that her daughter was missed tremendously. And then he asked if he and the rest of the crew could send her a little present in remembrance of the last three years of friendship, to which Shepard said yes!
Shepard summed up the experience best when she said:
“Witnessing their unconventional friendship over the past several years has been nothing short of magical. To know it impacted them just as much as it impacted us, fills me with love and hope. The visit today and their ongoing kindness to my daughter has reaffirmed my faith in goodness and humanity. These are moments we’ll always remember.”
That small Facebook post ended up being shared almost 2,000 thousand times, with over 15,000 reactions. Cheers to the little things in life!
Sources: OpposingViews, Love What Matters/Facebook
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