A Special Person

A SPECIAL PERSON
The world we live in today is filled with people who care only for themselves. You really cannot blame people for not caring for others because of the pressure modern life throws at everyone. 24 hours is barely enough time for anyone to make use of in other to make ends meet. However, when you find people, and you rarely would, who would go out of their way to bother about others despite their own troubles, you know you have found a special person – and that is who my friend, John David, is.  
John has been a very special friend to me since childhood. In fact we were born almost on the same day. While I was born on the 27th of December 1982, he was born on the 28th of December 1982. The proximity of our birthdays actually makes our bond stronger, as you would notice soon. However, we did not get to know this until we were about to write our first school leaving certificate examination in the year 1990, where we were required to provide our birth information on the application forms. Since John knew that my birthday was just 1 day ahead of his, he has never missed the opportunity to buy me gifts on my birthday, even when many times I failed to reciprocate the gesture. The most touching display of affection to me was on our 25th birthday. I had left town on the 10th of December for a 3-week training in a very remote location in Nigeria. I really wasn’t expecting to receive any gift on my birthday since I was isolated from all my friends and family. But I remember John had called me a few days earlier to find out my exact location what I wished I could have for my birthday.   At exactly 7am on December 27th 2007, I heard the doorbell of my hotel room ring. I hurried to the door and found it was the mailman with a parcel for me. I collected it and went back into the room, I tore it open and to my surprise, it was a parcel from John and it contained exactly what I had wished for my birthday! That selfless and kind gesture brought tears to my eyes....