Every time four o’clock in the afternoon hits a noisy and crowded alley in Sampaloc, Manila, there is a scene that the gossips in the barangay always look forward to. It is the arrival of Mang Berting.

Mang Berting is in his seventies, has a limp in his right leg, and always wears his faded polo shirt that is almost frayed. Every day, rain or shine, he walks towards an abandoned and dilapidated building that used to be a popular bread shop—the Panaderia de Rosa. In front of the bakery’s rusty roll-up door, Mang Berting carefully and patiently leaves a fresh, white rose.

Of course, the neighbors can’t help but offer their own speculations. Aling Nena, the recognized leader of the gossips in the area, always has a comment while sweeping her yard.

“Oh, that Berting has really gone crazy,” he said loudly to his friends. “Maybe he’s still waiting for his girlfriend who left him at the bakery in the seventies. It was a waste of money to buy flowers, he should have borrowed them.”

Those who heard him only laughed. Many believed that the old man was only living in an illusion of the past, a desperate lover who could not accept that his beloved was dead or gone and that his sanity had escaped him.

But despite the painful taunts, Mang Berting never answered or got angry. He only smiled sparingly at those who looked at him, carefully placed the flower in the dust, stroked the old wall as if he were talking to someone, and then walked home quietly with his cane. He had no family in that area. He lived alone in a small rented room at the end of the street, and his only happiness during the day was his four o’clock in the afternoon ritual.

Months and years passed, and the old man and his faithful rose became part of the Sampaloc landscape. No one noticed, no one cared, until one rainy Tuesday, an unexpected event shook the entire street and shattered everyone’s long-held questions.

While Mang Berting quietly placed his white rose on the wet cement, a sleek, black car suddenly stopped in front of the old bakery.

Page: SAY – Story Around You | Original story

A beautiful woman in her thirties got out, holding an expensive umbrella and an old brown envelope wrapped in plastic so it wouldn’t get wet. Aling Nena stopped sweeping. Gradually, other neighbors came out of their houses to inquire who the stranger was who had visited their small place.

The woman approached Mang Berting while he was being escorted. “Are you Roberto?” the woman asked, her voice filled with intense emotion.

The old man nodded, a little confused and shivering from the cold. “It’s me. Why, ineng?”

“I’m Clara,” the woman introduced herself while trying to hold back her sobs. “I’m the granddaughter of Lola Rosa. The owner of this bakery who passed away a long time ago.”

The neighbors whispered. Aling Nena and her companions listened carefully. Everyone thought the woman would be angry because a crazy old man might be turning their property into a garbage dump or desecrating it.

But Clara opened the brown envelope and took out an old notebook and a sealed document.

“We’ve been looking for you for months,” Clara’s voice trembled. “Before Grandma Rosa died fifteen years ago, she gave us a message. She said we needed to find a Roberto with a crippled leg. We didn’t know who you were until someone posted on the internet about an old man who left flowers at the old bakery every day.”

Clara turned to the gossiping neighbors who were waiting before looking at Mang Berting again. “Grandma always tells stories about you. Everyone thought you had a romantic past. But I read the truth in her diary.”

Clara opened the crumpled pages of the notebook and read aloud as the rain poured down.

“For young Roberto. You are the bravest street kid I have ever met. Every day, no matter how hungry you are, you wait for my leftovers without asking for anything in return except to help me clean the bakery. When you had an accident and were crippled, I promised myself that I would adopt you. But suddenly you disappeared the next day. I just found out that the authorities had caught you and taken you to an orphanage in a distant province.”

Tears began to fall from Mang Berting’s eyes, mixing with the raindrops. He was not a crazy lover. He was the same little street kid that Rosa helped to survive, a child separated from the only person who showed him a mother’s love. He returned to Manila after so many years to thank and lift the old man out of hardship, but it was too late when he learned that he had passed away. So he left flowers every day as an eternal remembrance and gratitude.

Clara approached and held the old man’s rough hand. “Mang Berting, he left behind more than just a diary.” Clara handed the document to the old man. “That’s the title deed to the land and the entire bakery. It was in your name before he passed away. Grandma said she would bequeath it to you because she knew you were the only one with enough goodness in her heart to reopen it and continue feeding the hungry people on the streets, just like she did to you before.”

Mang Berting fell to his knees in the rain, sobbing as he hugged the title deed tightly to his chest. The gossiping neighbors, especially Aling Nena who tried to hide her face, were silently crying, filled with deep shame for their judgments and ridicule of the old man for so many years.

The once dark and haunted bakery has become a witness to the purest form of gratitude and love—not romantic, but the pure love of a mother for an orphaned child, and the loyal love of a young man who never forgets.