Nazar Boncugu, an UnBroken Hope for Children Should not Cry

More about Nazar Boncugu, an UnBroken Hope for Children Should not Cry

I am going on working on experimental prompting with various results I sort of fancy.
But this one brought back a very vivid memory back...
A Good Luck charm we had once bought when we were in Bodrum, Turkey. And the story attached to it.

It was gigantic and not cheap.
It looked like an amalgamation of many colored glass pieces and was SO beautiful.
And after shopping: we went to the harbour to book a boat tour (Actually, not to book one. But we ended up booking one).

There was a Tour guide whose name was hard to pronounce, so everyone just called him Black, albeit he was the whitest looking among them.
He was also from Romania, apparently (His ancestry being Ottoman Nobles in Romania, having to flee for the lands during the Balkan wars.
I was a little boy, but I remember him very well. He was so good with kids. The kind of big brother guys that are just like born to be Big brothers.
But the story is about something even more touching (For me).

When booking, we walked a plank like thing to get on the boat to look around (Queen Bodrum or Queen Marry or something like that).

Anyhow: My sister had instantly a crush on him.
I confess that to date; he is probably the most attractive dude I have ever seen. But I was SO pissed off at her so much for being all over him.
I wanted to go. Very angrily (You know how little boys are with their hormones guided siblings?).
But whilst aggressively getting back on the plank. I dropped the bag and shattered the "eye shaped charm".

The Captain and Black tried to make me feel better by explaining that the charm worked this way.
"If harm was to come upon me, it would break in my stead".
But trust you me: I had not felt ANY better.
I cried my eyes out.

My Father was born in the States.
But my Mom was in Romania until the end of the Ceaușescu dictatorship.
So she was so much more careful with money, and Man did she complain about how expensive that thing was.
I cried much, MUCH more the whole evening.

They even contemplated to cancel joining the tour that evening.
But eventually we DID join the tour and actually had a very good time.
(Except my mother… She kept complaining about how expensive the drinks were).
The tour was a lot of fun for both me, and my sister was again all over him (Don't get the wrong idea... she was 8 or something).

Just while we were getting off, Black gave us both a giant bear hug; and when he put me down, he told me to wait a minute. That he had a surprise.

I remember every detail.

It was wrapped but when I unwrapped it, it was even a bigger beautiful glass Charm.
He said that was his last tour, that he was leaving to Belgium.
And he preferred his memory to be of me laughing. Not crying.
He added: "Children should not cry".

I used these words SO often, Black.
And it made me a much better "me" in my decisions.
A more memorable person.
Thank you, my personal superhero.
I have NEVER forgotten you