‘A gift’: Kind gesture from stranger helps teen coping with loss of father

MOUNT HOLLY, N.C. — A 16-year-old got a little help from a stranger on a day he needed it most.

It’s the kind of thing that happens to so many of us -- You go to the store and realize your wallet is at home. For William Padgett, it happened on a day when he was trying hard not to think about one of the worst losses of his young life.

Then, something special happened.

“It was crazy,” he said.

Padgett felt like an unplanned encounter at checkout was providence.

“It’s a small thing overall but in that moment, it was something that I needed,” he said.

In September, his father James Padgett, died of a heart attack. His mother was not in the picture, so that left Padgett -- the oldest of three sons -- with extended family to lean on but no biological parents.

“We just try to cling to each other as much as we possibly can,” Padgett said.

It was hard not to think about their father Friday, which would have been James Padgett’s 44th birthday. William Padgett went to Walmart to get food that day and realized he didn’t have his wallet. A stranger behind him spoke up.

“Out of nowhere she just asked how much my total was,” Padgett said.

It was $75 dollars. He told her he would go home and get the money, but she insisted. He immediately thought of his father.

“I almost cried then because I had been thinking about him all day because it was his birthday,” Padgett said. “The way that it impacted me was much bigger than $75.”

“God’s way of telling me he was with me, I guess,” he added.

Padgett thanked the woman and told her about his father. She shared that her father died a couple of years ago too.

He said what happened in that checkout line stayed with him, helping him to feel his father’s presence.

“It was like a gift from him and God,” Padgett said.

The family believes they have connected with the daughter of the woman who helped William Padgett. He hopes to be able to meet the woman and thank her again.

He said if he met the woman again, he would insist on doing any kind of work he can to repay her for the help.

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