As anyone who has ever been grocery shopping knows, it’s pretty customary for the cashier to ask “How’s your day going?” but rarely does the cashier actually care all that much about the response. For 22-year-old Sainsbury’s employee Ellie Walker, asking that question is the best part of her job.
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One day near Christmastime, Ellie asked Edwin Holmes– an 86-year-old widower and frequent Sainsbury’s shopper– how he was doing, and his response broke her heart. Edwin told Ellie that he was lonely. His wife of 45 years had passed away in 2009 and he had no family in the country. He told Ellie he spent most of his time alone and planned to spend Christmas Day the same way.
Despite the age difference, Ellie asked Edwin if he’d like to get dinner. “I thought if it was my granddad and he was alone I would want someone to talk to him,” said Ellie. But she wasn’t prepared for Edwin to show up in a suit, flowers in hand!
The Sun
The Sun
When Ellie saw how dressed up he was for their simple dinner, she immediately broke down in tears. “It made me cry because I could see how much it meant to him.”
As for Edwin, he had the sweetest explanation for his attire: “As for the suit, it was my first date for about 55 years, and I got the flowers because I wasn’t going to go empty handed.â€
Ellie said that the “date” had him “as nervous as a schoolboy.”
The Sun
But the story doesn’t end there. The dinner sparked a sweet friendship between the unlikely duo. “I see him regularly now and we meet for coffee. It’s nice to be able to chat with him,” said Ellie. “He is the cutest man and so chatty.”
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