An elderly man was thrown out of his home in the middle of a storm and would do something that would change his life forever. Pedro lived in one of the largest and most socially unequal cities in the country. He was an old man who sold sweets in a small stall he had near the center, thanks to which he’d managed to support himself for a long time. It was the only thing he had left after a life that had treated him unfairly. Since he was a child, he’d had to work very hard to be able to eat.
His parents had abandoned him when he was only eight years old, and since then he’d learned to live and fend for himself. He was a very Noble child who unfortunately hadn’t been presented with the opportunities to do well because when he found himself alone without resources, the first and only doors that opened for him were those of crime.
That was how Pedro learned to steal. Although he never robbed anyone, he had actually become skilled in the art of extracting belongings without owners noticing, and no one ever realized that someone had stolen from them until they arrived home. He also stole food from stores and supermarkets and thus gradually managed to survive. Although this was his only means to keep from starving, he always hoped that he could do something better with his life and earn an honest living. But that opportunity only came when Pedro became a strong young man with a great stamina also.
He was then, at the age of 19, and he started working in warehouses selling all kinds of products and stopped stealing. Although it must now be a heavier job, he felt more needs not having to take anything from anyone to be able to eat. And so another two years of his life passed until he made friends with someone who helped him in a way he never expected.
He was an older man who often shopped at one of the supermarkets where Pedro did the heavy lifting, and for some reason the young man had taken a liking to him. So they became friends little by little, and Pedro began to help the old man with household chores and earned a place in his home and also the groceries. Finally, Pedro was able to call a place home and live for many years of the old man who shortly before he died, confessed to him that he hadn’t helped him out of charity, but that they were actually family.
The old man was Pedro’s grandfather, who, after learning that his daughter had abandoned him, influenced by a bad husband several years before, had set himself the task of searching for him until he found him. But he hadn’t been able to confess his kinship to her because he felt guilty in a way for what his daughter had done to his grandson since he himself had abandoned her and her mother for another woman, and he believed that he, in a way himself had contributed by that action to his daughters, having been able to leave without remorse and still to that day felt ashamed for it.
However, now that he felt he didn’t have much longer to live, he knew it was right and necessary to tell the whole truth. Also, he was planning to let his grandson inherit his house, which was the only thing he had of value, and he didn’t want to give it in the hands of lawyers who would give it to his daughter because she didn’t deserve it. Unfortunately, after the grandfather’s death, the legal situation became complicated and the house was not transferred to Pedro but to his daughter. When she met Pedro again and learned that it was his son who had been accompanying his father all that time, she felt something similar to remorse and allowed Pedro to continue living there. But now, with her, her new husband, and the children of the marriage.
It took Pedro a long time to get used to this new reality. In spite of all the time that had passed since his mother abandoned him, he was still pained by the loving treatment she lavished on her other children, expressions of affection she’d never had for him. However, Pedro got used to it in time and continued living there and working at one thing and another. His life went by with no time for friends, no time for family of his own just surviving. The years passed and Pedro grew older.
His mother and her husband had already died, and in the house there was just him and his stepsiblings. They also made their own life, and one day they left him there alone without any explanation. Pedro was too old to do heavy work, and it was then that he got his candy stall and continued to survive thanks to it. But one rainy day when he was returning home, he found his belongings in the street and no way to get in. His stepsiblings had thrown him out in the rain without a care in the world.
After all, the house had been his mother’s was now theirs, and although Pedro was also entitled to a share, he was so old that he felt he had no strength to fight for what was rightfully his, nor did he have any money. However, his bad luck did not last long because the same day he was thrown out and while it was still raining, a handsome young man drove by and asked Pedro what he was doing there in the rain, and since he noticed that Pedro wanted to unburden himself, he invited him to a nearby coffee shop, and there they stayed together for hours while Pedro told him all about his life.
The young man, who was a lawyer felt so much pain in the way Pedro had been treated that he decided to help him without expecting anything in return and told him that they together would fight for that house that should have always been his and no one else’s because that was his grandfather’s will. Although it wasn’t an easy battle with time, all the pieces fell into place and although they didn’t manage to keep the house for Pedro alone, the stepsiblings were forced to give him his rightful place or at least pay him his share.
And they did, So the money from the sale was not enough to buy a new house but he didn’t need it because the lawyer opened the doors of his house for the rest of his life. He had enough space for him and the old man to have the Privacy he needed and he was so much like his own grandfather and personality that he had no heart to turn his back on him the last years of his life. Thus, Pedro had a home in which he spent his last years peacefully a time he used to make peace with his own life and forgive all those who had at one time or another wronged him and he died knowing that his story would one day be known and his name would never be forgotten.