“I don’t know.”
“Make one up.”
He smiled.
“About what?”
Elena thought for a moment.
“About a girl who got a new wheelchair.”
Alejandro laughed.
“And a boy who got a new guitar?”
“Exactly.”
Everyone laughed.
Then Nathan became serious.
“There is one more thing.”
Alejandro looked at him.
Nathan reached into his pocket and pulled out a small envelope.
“This is from Elena’s family.”
Alejandro shook his head.
“I don’t want money.”
“It’s not money.”
He opened the envelope.
Inside was a photograph.
It was a picture of Elena sitting in her new wheelchair beside Alejandro.
On the back, Jillian had written:
“Some people give gifts. Some people give pieces of themselves. Thank you for giving our daughter hope.”
Alejandro stared at the words.
Then he hugged Elena.
She hugged him back.
I stood in the corner watching my thirteen-year-old son hold onto the friend he had helped.
And suddenly I understood something.
I had spent years teaching Alejandro that money was valuable.
That expensive things had to be protected.
That we should be careful with what we owned.
But he had taught me something far more important.
Sometimes the most valuable thing you own isn’t something you keep.
