At first, I thought she was just another kid playing with trash—something you see a lot around here. But when I got closer, I saw she was crying. Quiet, real tears.
She was sitting by a pigeon lying injured on the sidewalk, barely moving. She had wrapped an old scarf around her hand and was shielding its face from the wind.
“If it’s going to die, it shouldn’t die alone,” she whispered.
I wanted to tell her to leave, but I couldn’t. She cared deeply for that broken bird. After a while, it stopped twitching. She gently buried it in a small patch of dirt behind a bakery, explaining her brother used to bury bugs—everything deserves a soft goodbye.
Her name was Lina. I’m Marc.
She didn’t have a real home. Sometimes she crashed on her aunt’s couch—if the boyfriend wasn’t there. She’d never talked to anyone about her struggles. “They just send you somewhere worse,” she said.
I bought us some pastries. She ate like she hadn’t had a proper meal in a long time.
Weeks later, I saw her again, cleaner, a little brighter. She’d found a shelter where she did chores and caught up on school. She told me about a cat named Spoon who steals food with her paw.
Lina said she wanted to be a vet. “That pigeon didn’t have anyone. But if someone could’ve fixed its wing in time…” She wanted to be that someone.
Years passed. She got a scholarship for pre-vet. She sent me a photo in a white coat, holding a rescued kitten. “One down, thousands to go,” the caption read.
That moment, when she refused to walk past a hurting bird, changed two lives.
Sometimes all it takes is one person who says, “You’re not alone.”
And that’s where healing begins.
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