99-year-old shows character, returns mistakenly stolen towels 44 years later

Shakespeare once said, "No legacy is as rich as honesty." Nahim Alcure lives by these words. At 99, he decided to correct a mistake he made 44 years ago. In 1980, Alcure accidentally took a bath towel from a hotel. When he finally realized his mistake, he knew he had to make it right. In doing so, he left a memorable legacy for the hotel staff. 

The 99-year-old former mayor of Iúna, who served from 1967 to 1971, recalls his stay at the Plaza Hotel Colatina in Espirito Santo, Brazil, in 1980. He was there for his son’s law entrance exams. "I stayed at the hotel for a week and when I went to unpack my suitcase, I discovered that I had taken a towel by mistake. I moved several times over the years and ended up forgetting about it and didn't know where it was. But when it reappeared, I made a point of returning it," Nahim told the Brazilian publication GI.

Unaware of the towel tucked in his suitcase, Nahim returned home. His employees, thinking it was his, stored it somewhere in his large residence. It wasn't until March 2024 that he found the towel and decided to return it. While in Guarapari, he planned his trip to Colatina to fulfill this wish, according to A Gazeta.

In April, while at his son Nahim Alcure Junior's house, Nahim shared his plan. Together with his son and daughter-in-law, they embarked on a 180-kilometer, roughly 111 miles, journey to the hotel. “We decided to change the itinerary from Guarapari to Iuna and walked more than 180 km to fulfill this desire of the man who reached 99 years old with a strong desire to live, and to live doing the right thing, no matter how small it may be for some,” said Nahim Alcure Junior.

In the hotel, the trio was greeted with "surprise and gratitude." Remembering that moment, Nahim recalled, “The girl was very surprised and immediately wanted to take a portrait with me. They asked why I kept the towel for so long, and why I wanted to return it to the hotel. I replied that honesty is not a virtue, it’s a duty!” 

Nahim said returning the towel lifted a weight off his shoulders. “The hotel employee said that she thought the act was important, thanked me, and made a point of taking a picture," he added. "They said that they don't even use those towels anymore. They are going to put it in a frame and hang it on the wall,"

The hotel’s owner, Maria Zelurze, who had decided to frame the towel, said that Nahim "was excited" when he went to return the towel. "He returned the towel and I put it in a frame. He was bothered by having kept the towel and decided to come. He was all excited. He took it by mistake, he didn't do it on purpose, he is an honest person and that is very rare.”

She added that it is uncommon for people to return the items they purloin, mistakenly or otherwise, from the hotel. “Here, from time to time, people take towels, bedspreads, but they don't return them,” she said, adding, “Returning something had never happened before.”