They say you’re your truest self when you think no one is watching, and for Alonzo Johnson, that notion couldn’t be truer.
As Johnson, a 23-year-old Massachusettes man, was shopping at the Holyoke Mall, when he noticed an elderly man having a difficult time with an escalator.
Johnson then took it upon himself to stop and help the frightened elderly man down the escalator in the Massachusetts shopping mall last week.
However, he didn’t know that an onlooking civilian was not about to let his good deed go unnoticed. Facebook user Paula Acorsi Picard snapped a picture of Johnson and the elderly man, calling the moment ‘a little redemption for the human soul’.
https://www.facebook.com/paula.accorsipicard/posts/1749685121716282
via Mass Live:
Accorsi Picard, a hospice nurse, was at the mall with a friend who also is a nurse. As she finished a phone call, she noticed her friend, ahead of her, talking with the elderly man near the escalator outside Macy’s.
“We’re both nurses, we’re both hospice nurses, not that that matters, but we deal with elderly people all the time,” she said.
The elderly man was saying that he’d had an uncomfortable experience on an escalator in Las Vegas, she said: ” ‘I’m 83 years old, I shouldn’t be afraid, but I got scared.’ ” Johnson came along and emanated kindness, said Accorsi Picard, asking if he could help.
“It was really nice. You don’t see that a lot. Here’s this younger kid …,” she said.
Johnson, works at Stop & Shop on Cooley Street in Springfield and plans to return to Springfield Technical Community College, said he does not consider himself extremely religious or spiritual, however, he does regularly attend church with his mother, Cynthia Johnson.
“I definitely believe in God. My Mom has me going to church, but my Mom is the reason for all of this. My Mom always tells us to be nice and do the right thing, you never know who’s watching. It’s really the way I was brought up and how I was raised,” he said.
Johnson is majoring in sports management and wants to become a sports agent, he told Mass Live.
I’m not crying, you’re crying.
