To the editor:

Dec. 2 started out as an ordinary day: breakfast, feeding the doggies and then opening Eagle Hobby Shop for our regular hours.

A customer came into the shop and announced that he had come to apologize for stealing something from the previous hobby shop my husband owned in his former home. The young man had been in the Boy Scouts program when my husband was a leader many years ago.

The young man had grown up, served in the military until retirement and had had this teenage misdeed on his mind for many years. He said he had attended church the previous Sunday and had learned a valuable lesson about “righting a wrong” of his teenage years.

He wanted to ask for forgiveness for his misdeed when he was a teenager, so he came to the Eagle Hobby Shop to talk with my husband and brought him a monetary gift.

My husband came into our home with tears in his eyes and related the story to me. He was so elated that one of his Scouts had remembered and that he had wanted to humble himself for his misdeed.

What an appropriate time of year for this story. Learning that he had meant so much to the teenager so many years ago that the boy never forgot my husband, who had shown love and care as a Scoutmaster, was a true gift for my husband.

This act of friendship and caring by this young man has already made our Christmas season very special. Surely God in his infinite mercy saw much good in this young man, who has set a great example for other young people to emulate.

We are very grateful to this young man for what he did.

Mary Grace Garner-Atkins

Suffolk