Dennis Porter, a 7-year-old child, experienced a terrible accident with his mother. She didn’t survive the injuries, leaving the boy alone. Just when he was giving up on life, something unbelievable happened…
It was already night, and it was raining heavily, but Dennis and his mother, Alison, had to go back home.
“Come on, sweetheart. I left your favorite food in the oven. We’ll eat together when we get home,” Alison said as she put the boy in his car seat…Click Here To Continue Reading>> …Click Here To Continue Reading>>
This routine happened almost every day, and Dennis always fell asleep on the way home. They lived in the small town of Griffin, but Alison worked in Atlanta, where the company headquarters were located. As she spent most of the day in Atlanta, she decided to enroll Dennis in a school near her office to be close to him in case of any emergency. They had no other family members, so they were very attached to each other.
The rides home were usually very calm, but that night the rain was heavier than usual. Dennis was startled by the noise of passing cargo trucks, but everything seemed under control. Unfortunately, that proved to be wrong. Alison drove attentively while Dennis had fallen asleep in his seat in the back. It was then that a truck driver attempted a high-speed overtaking and ended up colliding with the side of Alison’s car. The vehicle was thrown off the road immediately. The car spun on the road and flipped. Alison, still dizzy and frightened by what had happened, looked back for her son, but the seatbelt and the car’s position prevented her from seeing him.
“Calm down, son. It’s over. We’re okay,” she said.
The boy became calmer upon hearing his mother and confirmed that he was fine in his car seat. He wanted to cry, but he was too scared to let the tears fall.
It took about 30 minutes for help to arrive. The truck driver, responsible for the accident, was the one who called for assistance. He explained that he was trying to get home for his young daughter’s birthday and had his vision impaired by the rain. Nevertheless, the man had completely missed his daughter’s birthday as he was taken to the police station, while Alison and Dennis were taken by ambulance to a local hospital.
It was only when doctors began examining mother and son that they realized not everything was okay. The doctors examined Dennis and, surprisingly, found no cause for concern. However, Alison was in a more serious condition. Perhaps the concern for her son and the adrenaline of the moment had masked her problem, as they discovered a serious internal hemorrhage, and the woman needed emergency surgery. Dennis felt lost with all the doctors running around his mother.
“Hey, kid! Why don’t we go grab something to eat?” said a doctor, taking the boy away.
His name was Kevin, and he was a newly graduated resident. When he asked about Dennis’s father, the boy said he had never met him and didn’t know who he was. The little one ate a sandwich and an ice cream, but as soon as he had the opportunity, he asked the doctor, “Sir, is mommy going to be okay?”
The resident had not dealt with that kind of situation before and found himself without an answer. What he had learned in medical school was never to promise what he couldn’t guarantee. “Kid, I’m sure my colleagues are doing everything for your mom. But don’t worry, okay? Soon, you’ll be back home,” he reassured.
Kevin stayed by the boy’s side the whole time, even when he fell asleep after resisting for a long time. One of the doctors then appeared and said that Alison, still in the operating room, was conscious and wanted to see her son. The resident already anticipated what would happen, so he woke up Dennis and took him to his mother.
Lying in bed, Alison asked Dennis to come closer. She asked him to swear that he would always be an honest and caring young man, just as he had been with her. And above all, she asked him to be stronger than ever before because his life was about to change. “Lastly, my dear Dennis, know that I love you and will always take care of you!” Tears streamed down Alison’s face as she hugged her son for the last time.
Alison passed away that night, leaving Dennis to face the world completely alone. With no father and no relatives, social services were contacted, and Dennis had to go to an orphanage. The boy resisted a lot at first. It was hard to accept that until recently he had a home, a mother who loved him more than anything in the world, and a stable routine. Now, none of that existed. The funeral was simple and modest, with only Kevin and some colleagues from Alison’s work in attendance. The boy said goodbye to his mother and made a tearful promise: “I will always come to visit you, Mom. I will never forget your last words and who you were to me.”
The first nights at the orphanage were not easy. His last peaceful sleep had been in the car on the way home. And then, when he woke up suddenly, the car was upside down, and his mother was calling his name. Memories seemed to come more intensely at night. When he finally managed to sleep, Dennis dreamed that Alison walked through the orphanage door to pick him up. When he woke up, he was still enveloped in the feeling that this dream provided. He spent hours thinking about it, becoming more and more isolated as he didn’t interact much with other children.
As the newcomer, the children teased him: “Hey Dennis, are you thinking about your mom’s ghost again, huh? I think you’d better stop being a crybaby and accept that she’s gone and won’t come back. No one will want to adopt a whiny baby like you.”
The orphanage staff didn’t seem to care and let things follow their natural course. Some mornings, they took all the children to a nearby park. There were some toys and opportunities for new and old children to play together. But the practice didn’t work with Dennis. When he realized that the park was close to the cemetery where his mother was buried, he distanced himself from the group and ran to fulfill his promise to always visit her while everyone else was distracted. He couldn’t leave the orphanage whenever he wanted, so he had to seize the opportunity.
Upon reaching the tomb, Dennis sat down and began to recount how his life was now that she wasn’t around. It was impressive how he spoke more in just 10 minutes than in all the weeks he had spent in the orphanage. For the boy, it was as if she were really there. Dennis could even imagine what she would say and how she would laugh when he told something funny.
“Mom, how I miss you,” he thought incessantly, as if it were a mantra. Dennis also spoke about how much he suffered in the orphanage, how the children were mean, and the staff simply didn’t help at all.
“I have nothing left here, I have no one, and I don’t feel happy anymore like I did with you, Mom,” Dennis said, raising his voice, angry and crying. “I want to disappear from this world, not exist anymore. I don’t want to live without you. Take me with you, take me!” he shouted.
Suddenly, a hand touched his shoulder and began to caress him, as if wanting to comfort him. Dennis felt warmth in his chest and seemed to be dreaming, but it was too real. He turned quickly and came face to face with a woman with a charming smile.
“Are you okay? I noticed you were crying and decided to see if you need anything,” said the mysterious woman.
Dennis tried to wipe away the tears and struggled to say everything that was stuck in his throat, but he couldn’t. “Look, I understand that it’s difficult, but I see that you also don’t want to be alone. What if I sit next to you, and we stay together?” she said, trying to comfort the boy in some way.
Dennis nodded. The woman said her name was Kate and that she was there visiting the grave of her son, who had passed away a few years ago and was a little older than Dennis. The boy then opened up and finally managed to communicate. She told him that her mother had recently passed away, and she was there to visit her, but, in truth, she had escaped from the orphanage outing to be there.
They talked for some more time until Kate offered to take him back to the orphanage. Dennis didn’t know the exact address, but he remembered the streets he had traveled to get there. On their way back, they passed by the park and saw a carousel. Kate noticed how fascinated Dennis seemed with the ride and encouraged him to hop on one of the horses. The carousel started to spin, and the boy smiled for the first time in weeks. Looking around, he noticed several twinkling lights on the trees and many decorations indicating that Christmas was approaching.
When Dennis got off the ride, he accidentally stepped on something bulky. Looking down, he saw a leather wallet. Since there weren’t many people in the park at that moment, he discreetly picked it up, looking around to see if anyone could be the owner. Upon opening the wallet, Dennis was shocked. He had never seen so much money in his life—various crumpled 100-dollar bills. It was a sum sufficient for him to escape from the orphanage once and for all. Dennis returned to Kate but didn’t mention what he had found. He wondered how someone could have dropped all that money and not come back to look for it. READ FULL STORY HERE>>>CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE READING>>>
However, on
the way out of the park, Dennis and Kate passed by a security guard, and the boy felt a shock run through his body. He remembered the promise he had made to his mother on her deathbed: to be honest and caring toward others. Asking Kate to wait for a moment, Dennis pulled the wallet from his pocket and handed it to the security guard, saying that someone had lost it near the carousel.
“Oh my goodness, thank you for finding Mr. Watson’s wallet, kid! He’s one of the longest-serving employees in our park and was devastated for losing his entire year-end salary! You just saved his family’s Christmas, young man!”
The guard turned to Kate and concluded, “Congratulations on your son, miss. You must be very proud of him.” This last comment silently hurt them both.
When Kate and Dennis finally arrived at the orphanage, they expected everyone to be worried about the boy’s disappearance. However, the staff was surprised to see him returning at that hour, as if they hadn’t even noticed he hadn’t come back with the rest of the group. The other children noticed the clear discomfort in the atmosphere and started laughing at him: “See? Nobody even missed the crybaby! Better run to your bed and cry again, after all, that’s why you came back, right?”
Kate was astonished by the staff’s indifference. Dennis was completely embarrassed and hurt. The woman left with a heavy heart and decided to enter a nearby church. She prayed for Dennis to find a family that would treat him well and love him truly.
In the following days, Kate couldn’t have a peaceful night’s sleep. During one early morning, she dreamt of her deceased son, the one she had visited on the afternoon she met Dennis. It had been several years since she dreamt of the boy, and it shook her. She couldn’t go back to sleep. She got up to get a glass of water and recalled the last memory with her son. They were on a beach, as they almost always were every weekend, but she got distracted for a few seconds while applying sunscreen, and he went into the sea alone. When she realized the boy wasn’t on the shore, her heart froze. Hours later, the rescue team found the boy in the sea, unfortunately lifeless.
In the dream, the boy appeared in a house and kept repeating the phrase, “Mom, take me with you, please,” while handing her a note with an address. Drinking water in the kitchen, Kate remembered the address and wrote it down on a piece of paper so as not to forget it in the morning, even though she thought it was just a dream. The next day, she told her husband what was happening, from the day she met Dennis to the strange dreams with the deceased son.
“My love, I don’t understand any of these things. But if our son is trying to say something, I think you should listen,” said the man.
Kate took the address from the paper and checked on her phone if it really existed. To her astonishment, the address was real and led to an orphanage, the same one where Dennis was living. Her husband was confused, thinking it was too much of a coincidence, but then Kate revealed that she had connected with that child in the cemetery.
“I felt good with him that day. I felt that he needed me, but I also needed him. We kept each other company. He’s an honest boy, and it seemed like, for the first time in a long while, I was whole again,” said Kate.
The husband embraced her tightly and announced that they would go to the orphanage right at that moment.
The couple was greeted by one of the staff members who said that visiting hours had ended, and appointments had to be made in advance by phone. The man then explained the situation, trying to get the staff member to make an exception, but he seemed unyielding. It was then that the husband remembered what Kate had told him, how they seemed to ignore how the children felt. That’s when the man offered two 50-dollar bills. The staff member accepted without asking any more questions and opened the door for the couple.
“My boss isn’t here, so enjoy!” he said with a wide grin.
Upon entering the room, Kate recognized Dennis within seconds. He was sitting on the couch alone while other children played. As soon as Dennis saw Kate, he ran toward her and hugged her. The husband seized the moment and began asking some questions to the boy.
“Hey, tell me what a kid like you was doing in the cemetery at that hour?”
And Dennis, now more at ease, replied while looking down, “I was talking to my mom, sir. I was asking her to take me away from here, far away.”
That shocked the couple. How could someone so young say something like that? Kate and her husband exchanged glances and seemed afraid of what they were about to suggest to each other. Obviously, they felt the desire to adopt Dennis and take him home right away, but the situation was not that simple. Kate did not want in any way to show that she was replacing her son, but perhaps her dream had been a kind of permission to allow herself to love another child in her home. After all, since her son had gone, her life had never been the same, and nothing and no one seemed capable of erasing that.
After much conversation at home and a plan drawn up to go through the complicated adoption process, the couple decided that it was time to move forward and, most importantly, give a home to someone who so desperately needed it. They spent months trying to meet all the necessary requirements to adopt Dennis, visiting the boy almost daily during this time, ensuring he was being well treated. After what felt like an eternity, the day finally arrived, and Dennis saw Kate and her husband at the orphanage’s reception waiting for him.
With tears in her eyes, Kate opened her arms, and Dennis ran to her. The embrace they shared moved even the institution’s staff and some of the children who used to mock him. Dennis went home with his new family. Over time, he had stopped being a reclusive child and related much better to other people. During a Sunday lunch, something that seemed to be a new tradition within his new family, Dennis spoke proudly:
“I thank you all very much for everything, but I also thank my mother. I’m sure she, in some way, took me out of the orphanage. After all, she promised to take care of me.”
Kate also expressed her gratitude, saying that she went to a church on the day she met Dennis. Inside, she prayed for the boy to find a family that would care for and love him very much. She just didn’t imagine that this family would be hers!
Dennis and his new parents visited the cemetery once a month in memory of their deceased. Dennis bought a bouquet of roses that adorned his mother’s grave. Kate was also always with her deceased son, making it clear that both would never be forgotten. Kate and Dennis felt that, in a mysterious way, they had been the true responsible parties for that unlikely union, which ended up forming a happy family again.
As they left the cemetery, they walked toward the park, and Dennis ran to the carousel, his favorite ride. Meanwhile, his parents watched the boy spin and spin, with the utmost care and affection.