Orphan Sells Granny’s Ring for Food, Buyer Recognizes It as His Family Heirloom – Story of the Day

Hunger forces Elton, a street kid, to sell his late grandmother's sapphire ring, but the pawn shop buyer has a shocking response. He claims the ring is a family heirloom and tells Elton a story that changes his life.

Elton clutched his growling belly as he stumbled toward the pawn shop. He needed food and medical supplies for his rare skin condition, and there was only one way he could afford them: selling Granny’s sapphire ring.

Granny had died a year ago, and Elton was sent to a shelter. He’d run away a few months back and survived on the streets since then. But the last week had almost killed him. Like it or not, he had to sell Granny’s ring to survive.

Elton set the ring down on the pawn shop counter. “Sir? How much can you give me for this? It belonged to my granny, and it’s very valuable.”

Oddly, the man didn’t seem frightened by Elton’s blisters and bandages, giving him only a cursory glance before looking at the ring. He gasped and snatched it from the counter.

"It’s impossible this ring belonged to your granny," the buyer gasped. “It’s been in my family for generations! Unless…” the man peered at Elton with a weird expression. "Those skin lesions… Elton? I thought you died 13 years ago!"

A few years earlier

Linda stared at her son, Jared, in horrified disbelief. She’d come to visit for the first time in months and was shocked by what she found.

"How could you give your son up for adoption?" Linda demanded.

Jared flopped into an armchair and sipped his beer. "That Epidermolysis Bullosa thing he was born with… it’s the reason Megan divorced me and it was costing me a fortune in medical bills! I did what I had to do."

Linda couldn’t believe her ears. "I'm embarrassed to call you my son."

She stormed out of Jared's house and called a cab. She headed straight for the children’s shelter to save her grandson, but she was too late.

"I'm sorry, ma'am, but Elton was adopted two weeks ago," the administrator told Linda.

With some clever talking and downright bullheadedness, Linda convinced the administrator to give her the address of Elton's new home. She headed there immediately. A woman with a friendly smile answered the door.

"I’m here to see my grandson, Elton," Linda said. "My son gave him up for adoption without informing me and I only found out today."

"Oh my God, that’s awful!" The woman gestured for Linda to enter. "Please, come in. Elton should wake from his nap soon."

The woman introduced herself as Gabi and escorted Linda to the sitting room. They were soon joined by Gabi's husband, Justin. The couple gladly answered Linda’s questions about Elton's well-being. About fifteen minutes later, a child’s cry interrupted the conversation.

"The little man has good timing!" Gabi smiled as she moved toward the door. "Stay right there and I'll bring Elton to say hello!"

Linda rushed forward when Gabi returned with little Elton in her arms, but Gabi twisted away from her.

"Sorry, Linda, but we must be careful,” Gabi said. “There’s a wound on his back that’s just started healing. Hold out your arms, and I'll hand him to you, okay?"

Linda carefully took Elton. "I'm so sorry I wasn't here for you," she muttered to him. "Your parents did an awful thing but everything will be okay now I'm here." She turned to Gabi.

"Thank you both for caring for Elton, but I want to take him home now. He belongs with his family."

Gabi and Justin refused. They loved Elton with all their hearts and couldn’t bear to be parted from him. They explained to Linda that they’d assembled a great team of doctors for Elton and arranged for him to start gene therapy treatment.

"I don't want to be separated from him again," Linda said. "Perhaps I could work as your nanny? You wouldn't need to pay me."

Gabi immediately dismissed the suggestion, but Justin urged her to reconsider. He thought it would be great for Elton to spend time with his granny and provide Gabi an opportunity to spend more time on her art. Eventually, she agreed.

Linda took the next plane home and sold her house. Once she'd moved and settled into the tiny apartment she was renting in town, she called Jared and told him what she’d done.

"You need to tell those people you changed your mind and go back home,” Jared yelled. “Please, stop meddling! Leave those people to raise Elton."

"I won't listen to another word of this nonsense! Goodbye, Jared, and don't bother calling me until you come to your senses!"

On Linda’s first day as Elton’s nanny, Gabi showed her the first aid kit for Elton’s antiseptic and antibiotic creams, wound dressings, and sterile equipment. Gabi also gave her strict instructions not to lance Elton’s blisters herself. She then showed Linda how to change the dressings on Elton’s feet.

Linda was shocked when she saw the wounds on Elton's feet. She quickly recommended turmeric cream to help them heal, but Gabi wouldn’t consider it.

Gabi’s rigid overprotectiveness frustrated Linda. After Gabi left for the art studio, Linda made Elton turmeric cream. When Linda bathed Elton later that day, she found a blister on the back of his knee. She lanced it, then liberally applied the turmeric cream.

"Now, Gabi will see how effective this cream is." Linda smiled as she carried Elton to his room for a nap.

However, Gabi was annoyed when Linda told her what she’d done. She immediately cleaned off the turmeric cream and treated the wound herself.

Gabi and Linda butted heads several more times over the next week. The tension between them was worsened by the wounds on Elton's feet, which weren't healing as well as Linda would've liked. She wanted Elton to be more active (another point she and Gabi disagreed on), but he couldn't do much with injured feet.

Since Gabi wouldn't listen to reason, Linda started treating the wounds with turmeric cream and cleaning them off before Gabi arrived home. She was determined to prove her methods worked.

A few days later, Elton developed a fever. By the time Gabi arrived home, Linda had placed him in a cold bath to cool him down.

"You should’ve called me!" Gabi yelled as she grabbed the thermometer from the first aid kit. "What was his temperature when this first started? Did you give him medicine to bring the temperature down?"

"I didn't check it; I gave him ibuprofen but it isn't working yet."

"What's this?" Gabi leaned over to examine the wounds on Elton's feet. "You put that yellow stuff on him again! How could you, Linda? Look at how inflamed these wounds are... and the pus..." Gabi shook her head.

The thermometer beeped then. Gabi let out a strangled cry as she examined the reading and pulled her phone from her pocket.

"I'm calling an ambulance,” Gabi said, “and you, Linda... I thought you loved Elton; I thought you wanted the best for him, but instead you keep undermining me and messing with his treatment plan. Get out of my house, and don't come back!"

Linda refused to accept Gabi’s decision. As much as she and Justin seemed to care for Elton, the boy deserved to live as normal a life as possible. Linda couldn’t intervene on his behalf anymore, but she also couldn’t abandon him to Gabi’s overprotective, narrow-minded nonsense.

The following day, Linda parked across from the house and waited for Gabi to leave. She then snuck inside. Elton was sitting in his padded playpen in the sitting room. He let out a pain-filled cry when Linda lifted him into her arms. She hurriedly carried him out of the house.

"Put that child down right now!"

Linda glanced over her shoulder and saw a woman leap off the house's front step and sprint toward her. Linda ran into the street and was almost flattened by a car. The driver skidded past her back, horn blaring and tires screaming.

She dove into her car and sped away. The police caught up to her shortly before she reached the freeway. Linda gritted her teeth as she watched the flashing lights from the squad cars gain on her in her rearview mirror.

Linda was so intent on the cop cars behind her that she didn't notice the highway patrol car that swerved in front of her until it was almost too late. She veered into oncoming traffic to evade it and found herself facing down an eighteen-wheeler.

Linda pulled in behind the highway patrol car in time to avoid a collision with the big truck. She then veered out into the next lane, cutting off a sedan. The driver slammed on the brakes, and chaos ensued. Several cop cars pursuing her were forced to stop as traffic piled up.

An illegal U-turn took Linda onto an older section of highway. There was a bridge up ahead, and she had an idea. Linda veered onto the shoulder to overtake a hatchback and stayed there.

Low-hanging tree branches and overgrown bushes smacked against her car as she sped over the gravel. She reached back with one hand, pulled Elton onto the passenger seat, and covered him with her coat.

The road narrowed to two lanes just before the bridge. There was only a simple chainlink fence on either side of the bridge’s entrance. Linda was headed straight for it, but she leaped from the car at the last minute.

The next day, Linda read about her and Elton’s tragic death in the newspaper. Elton sat near her feet, his body swathed in bandages. He looked up at Linda with tearful eyes and let out a pain-filled sob.

Present time

"I thought I lost everything that day, but now you're here, alive…” The pawnshop assistant stared tearfully at Elton. “Please understand; giving you up for adoption was the only way to ensure you had a good future and proper medical care. I tried explaining that to Mom, but she never could keep her nose out of other people's business, especially when she thought they were wrong and she was right."

Elton dropped his head into his hands. That sounded exactly like Granny. He remembered her stubborn insistence that God didn't give you any burdens you weren't strong enough to bear. He couldn't believe she'd said that to him after she stole him from a home where his struggles might've been considerably lessened.

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