This was Supposed to be a Blog Post About Women’s Day.

It turned out to be about the best people you meet in life

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On an ordinary 8th of March, more than 10 years ago, I was sitting at the office desk I used to work on, early in the morning, when a friend came in and handed me a corporate gift for Women’s Day.

The red rose, nestled in a transparent plastic pack and tied to the stem with a brief thematic message, was a traditional annual gift from the company's Human Resources department to all women employees at the time.

It would have been a normal corporate gift if it hadn’t been for what I found out shortly after.

Picking up the package from my friend’s hands and looking at it more closely, I saw two small chocolate bars at the bottom, which I had initially taken for granted, assuming they were all part of the HR Women’s Day gift pack.

As the day went by, though, I noticed that the other women colleagues had been given the same red rose + little note attached kind of gift, except for the pair of chocolate bars — the only item that distinguished my gift from the others.

Only then did I figure out that it was my friend, the one who had handed me the package a few hours earlier, who had bought those two chocolate bars and put them in the pack, alongside the rose, to give me as a simple, supposed-to-be-ordinary gift.

Seeing the other packages of roses clicked in me that he used to have breakfast every morning at a small bakery shop, near the office, where those small chocolate bars were probably sold.

And then, just because of that simple punctuation carefully placed in the narrative of that chapter in my ordinary everyday life, that 8th of March that I still recall 10 years later was no longer a usual Women’s Day.

By not letting me know, my friend just let me know everything I should learn about him.

I think that one of the best feelings in the world is when you find out that someone did something beautiful for you without even telling you so.

Because, even though I had found out who the person behind the little extra gift was, he never told me what he did, and I never asked, either.

It wasn’t necessary, after all, to verbally declare that pure kind of affection once the message could be clearly caught beneath the surface.

If one of us had felt any sort of obligation to say it to the other, I guess it wouldn’t have come out as special as it was.

And this is the part where I can declare that this text is no longer a mere blog post about Women’s Day. It is about the best people I’ve ever met.

I think that one of the best feelings in the world is when you find out that someone did something beautiful for you without even telling you so.

It could be a simple gift, like the one I got from that old friend back then; or it could be a helping hand that comes in when you most need it; or yet a subtle way to let you know that you are loved or appreciated.

When someone does these acts of service without “publicizing” themselves, free of any urge to let you know they did, it just reveals their true intentions.

Sometimes, of course, either by accident, proximity, or by the force of circumstances, you end up finding out who’s behind such gestures.

But, regardless of whether you discover it or not, it was never the goal they aimed for in the first place.

This reflection, then, leads me to another thought regarding the most cherished people I’ve met along the way.

The best people I’ve met in my life are the ones who've had nothing to offer but a true smile and a genuine connection.

Regardless of where they are from, what language they speak, what they have, or who they know. 

I feel attracted to the pureness of a good heart.

To the innocence of a careless laughter.

To the honesty of a sparkling eye.

To the warmth of the memories they leave in my heart.

And to the joy of being able to say that I’ve had the honor of having them cross my way.

Maybe that’s what we all deserve. More than the corporate red rose, we deserve to be gifted with selfless acts that bring meaning, warmth, joy, and love to our days, whether we eventually find who the author is or not. In this case, anonymity is gold.

And by the way, who said that this couldn’t be a blog post about Women’s Day? ;)

Love,

Ana Clara.