Two weeks ago, Paula Picard witnessed a touching moment between strangers at the Holyoke Mall in Holyoke, Massachusetts, and had to snap a picture. An 83-year-old man was standing atop an escalator, afraid of going down after a recent experience that frightened him. Alonzo Johnson, 23, stepped in, locked arms with the senior citizen, and helped him make it down safely.
Johnson tried to keep the elderly man’s mind occupied so he’d be less afraid. “It was more of me just having him talk so he can get his mind off of things,” Johnson told “Inside Edition.” “I told him how his hat looked nice and he looked very good for being an 83-year-old man.” Picard posted her photo of the two men on Facebook and it’s been shared over 200,000 times.
Picard saw the act of kindness as a touching reminder that strangers still help each other even in a world filled with unnecessary divisions. “In about an hour, the evening news will air and we’ll be reminded of division, race wars, political mud-slinging, shootings and other heartaches,” Paula wrote. “But today, violence, race, age, politics and other social lines were blurred and one person simply helped another. I wanted to hug both of them. Whoever this young man is, YOUR FAMILY RAISED YOU RIGHT! THANK YOU!”
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