My Son Sold His Beloved Guitar to Buy a Wheelchair for a Classmate — Then Two Police Officers Came to Our Door

My son Alejandro loved his guitar more than anything.

Not because it was expensive.

Not because it looked impressive.

And certainly not because anyone had forced him to learn how to play.

He loved it because it was his.

It had been his thirteenth birthday present, the gift my husband and I had saved for months to buy.

I still remembered the morning we gave it to him.

He had walked into the living room half asleep, expecting nothing more than cake and a few presents. Then he saw the long box wrapped in blue paper beside the couch.

He stopped.

“Mom… what’s that?”

“Open it.”

He tore the paper away.

When he saw the guitar case, he didn’t even speak.

He just stared.

Then he looked at us.

“Is this really mine?”

I laughed. “No, Alejandro. We bought it for the neighbor’s dog.”

He didn’t even notice the joke.

He threw his arms around me so hard that I nearly fell backward.

That guitar became his favorite possession.

He practiced before school.

He practiced after dinner.

Sometimes, I would wake up in the middle of the night and hear the soft sound of strings coming from his bedroom.