With so much negativity in the world today, even the smallest of kindnesses can make all the difference.
Eighty-four-year-old Jole and 94-year-old Michele, an elderly Italian couple, experienced this firsthand when neighbors overheard the couple crying and called the police. The police, finding the couple unharmed but overwhelmed by the loneliness they were experiencing and the negative stories in the news, decided to stick around for a while and cook the couple a meal to lift their spirits.
After asking for permission to go through the couple’s pantry, they decided on a classic: pasta with parmesan.
According to a Facebook post written by the police department, though the meal itself was nothing exceptional, it had a “precious ingredient: inside it is humanity.”
The story has resonated with thousands, where it has been shared more than 23,000 times and reacted to more than 64,000 times.
In a city that’s well-known for being a hub of both tourist and mafia activity in Italy, it’s not too often the police have the opportunity to take time out of their days to help people like Michele and Jole, but the department’s post poetically acknowledged the importance of caring for the downtrodden when one gets the opportunity.
The statement reads (translated from Italian):
“It is not always an easy life. Especially when the city is empty and the neighbors are away on vacation. Sometimes the loneliness melts into tears. Sometimes it’s like a summer storm. It comes suddenly and overtakes one…[It] can happen, like this time, that they scream so loud in their despair that, in the end, somebody calls the state police.”
In what seem to be increasingly unstable times in the both United States and abroad, it’s heartening to see humanity’s compassion and empathy on display.
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