The Best Piece Of Candy I Ever Had

I’ve been sad for most of my life, I had to find ways to comfort myself and do little things to make myself feel better. Most of that was in the form of a piece of candy I would have a little basket and I would take one before I went to bed, I would have a couple in my pocket and hope it didn’t melt before I could eat it. There’s a distinction between using food to come for yourself and then using food to fill a void. I never treated food to fill a void, it was just something to make me feel better for five minutes and then I could bounce back and never develop an unhealthy eating disorder.

When my grandmother would make my lunch boxes she would often give me a couple of pieces of Hershey’s kisses tap for lunch. One day in my junior year of high school I didn’t eat it, I don’t know why but I felt like this piece of candy was very important and it wasn’t meant for me so I put the piece of candy in my pocket.

My final class of the day was history class, I took my seat and waited for my friend to show up.

All the times that I would always arrive to class early, it gave me the time to get to know some of my classmates even if I couldn’t talk to them they would either have an enigmatic presence coming to the classroom. One of them was a cheerleader, we never really talked, but she was always very kind to me and it broke the stereotypical norm about cheerleaders being very shallow and heartless. This woman had a heart of gold, you could tell that even if you didn’t know her.

On this day of class, her sunshine smile was nowhere to be seen, you could feel the aura drop when she walked in. Something was wrong, she would always be coming to class with a big smile on her face so she took the seat next to her friend. Her friend was very concerned and asked what was wrong and the girl didn’t say anything. It was one of those moments that you still had to process before you could talk about it. To this day no one knew.

Her desk was in the second row where I was, to my left. And I remembered the piece of candy in my pocket, I didn’t hesitate to take it out of my pocket and lean over and place it on her desk.

I said to her, “I think you need this more than me.”

She looked at me with a look of gratitude and hopefulness and softly said to me, “Thank you.”

Her voice was very strained so even saying the words thank you was a lot to say with the emotional draining that happened to her.

It was perfect timing, I could see in the corner of my eye that she didn’t hesitate to dive into that piece of Hershey’s kisses before class began.

The class went on as normal and I concentrated on the lesson, as our teacher closed out the lesson so we could pack up our belongings and bolt to the school buses.

My classmate called out to me, I noticed that she had a little bit more color back in her cheeks, Her eyes were back to their vibrant blue color.

She said this sentence to me that I have never forgotten after 10 years.

“I don’t know why but that was the best piece of candy I’ve ever had in my life.”

You never know what small acts of kindness can make the biggest impact on someone, a Hershey’s kiss may not have solved your problems but it was a small act of kindness. We never know what we need when we’re sad and it could be the most unexpected thing like a piece of candy.