A beautiful moment of love and compassion has gone viral on social media, after a restaurant server spent his hard-earned break chatting with a lonely WWII veteran.
Dylan Tetil, 24, was taking orders when he headed over to the table of an elderly man who was sitting on his own.
The heartwarming moments that followed were captured by customer Lisa Meilande, before being shared to Facebook. Upon going over to the table, Meliander said that Tetil immediately got down on one knee and engaged the old man “eye-to-eye.”
“The man apologized for not hearing too well,” she recalled. “He had forgotten to put in his hearing aids. He talked about how he lost his hearing during his time in the war. He was 91 years old with many stories to tell. Dylan patiently listened giving him his full attention.”
The unnamed veteran added that he was “alone now” and doesn’t “often have someone to talk to.”
“Dylan smiled and said he enjoyed listening,” Meilander added.
After a few minutes of chatting, the server took his order and headed off to the kitchen—But the veteran immediately called for him to return so they could continue their conversation.
“I could tell as soon as I went up to him that he was eager to talk,” Tetil told Trib Live. “I brought him out his water, and he was like, ‘Please come back,’ and I said, ‘You know I will.’”
Tetil ended up spending his entire break listening to the man tell stories.
“As we left the restaurant the two of them were conversing and many people seated nearby were smiling. It was a touching sight,” Meilander added. She said that the family offered to pay for the man’s meal, but that another customer had already taken care of it.
“I guess we weren’t the only ones eavesdropping on the conversation,” she said.
The post has since been shared 73,000 times and has enjoyed almost 250,000 likes. Many have commented on the wonderful scene, applauding Dylan for his kindness.
“Tears to my eyes..all it takes is a few minutes of compassion for another human being,” one person wrote. “Way to go Dylan, you made that gentleman’s day…and mine.”
“I treat every individual I wait on/come into contact with just like that older gentleman,” Dylan wrote on Facebook in response to the story going viral. “Spreading positive vibes to people is what I care about.”