No—it was real cash.
A huge amount totaling:
FIVE MILLION PESOS (₱5,000,000.00)
“Nene…” Buboy’s voice cracked.
“Why, Kuya? How much? Ten?”
“Nene… five million…”
Buboy collapsed onto the dusty ground, crying uncontrollably as he hugged his sister and the stack of money.
“Kuya, why are you crying?”
“Nene, we won’t just be able to buy notebooks,” Buboy sobbed. “We can study until you become a doctor! We can get Dad treated! Nene—we’re rich!”
The siblings cried together by the roadside. A single glass of lemonade worth ten pesos became the key that changed their entire lives.
From afar, Mr. Henry Sy watched through his rearview mirror, smiling as he saw the siblings jumping in joy. He knew that was the best lemonade he had ever tasted in his life—
because it tasted like hope.
Years later, the lemonade stand was no longer there, but its story lived on. Buboy graduated as an engineer, and Nene fulfilled her dream of becoming a doctor. Their father recovered, and their small family finally lived without fear of hunger or missed school days.
They never forgot the man who stopped for a single glass of lemonade, nor the lesson he unknowingly taught them—that kindness, no matter how simple, can change the course of a life. And every time they tasted lemonade, it still reminded them of that scorching afternoon when hope first found them by the roadside.