A chance encounter leads to a special friendship between 4-year-old and elderly widower

(Image credit: Screenshot/YouTube/CBS Evening News)

last updated November 22, 2017

Friendships can form anywhere — including in front of the dairy section at the grocery store.

After his wife died, Dan Peterson, 83, of Augusta, Georgia, couldn't shake his grief. He tended to his garden, where his wife once grew roses, and was "just waiting it out to see how long I was going to live," he told NPR. One day last year, during a quick trip to the grocery store, he met a 4-year-old named Norah Wood, who could sense he was down. "I thought he needed a friend because he was sad," she said. Norah ran up to Peterson and said, "Hi, old person. Today's my birfday.'"

Her excitement was contagious. "When you have a little girl bouncing up and down and being so happy to be alive, you sort of change," Peterson said. Norah, her mom Tara, and Peterson began chatting, and Norah asked to take a photo with Peterson before they went their separate ways. She posted the picture on Facebook, and learned from a mutual friend that it was the first time Peterson smiled since his wife's death. Tara arranged a visit with Peterson, and after a fun afternoon, on their way out the door, Norah stopped to smell one of Peterson's red roses. "It was precious to me, the only thing I had to give back, so I got it and gave it to her," he told NPR. "That sort of sealed our friendship, I think." Catherine Garcia

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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