Have you ever received a pleasant surprise from an unlikely source?

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I don't mean surprise as in gift so put those stories back into you pocket. I am talking about the kind of pleasant surprise from a friend or a revelation about their private lives that reaffirms all of the positive feelings that you have about your friend? Example: I have a friend who is in his 50's He has been married to the same woman since he was in high school and I must say, the reason that they are still together is that a) he chooses to never be home and by that I mean unless she wants something fixed in the house (he's a contractor and home builder who can fix anything!) or he's stopping by to pick up the bills and the b@#$ing that she has been saving up since his last visit home he is never there. b) He is a wonderful provider and father to his family. He pays all of the bills in the household, he gives his wife and daughter just about anything they ask for. Cars condos attention whatever! (Even services them or pays someone to keep up the scheduled maintenance religiously plus any unexpected neccessary repairs all of the time!) He doesn't live in his house though, he is renting or buying a condo about 3 or four blocks from the home that he owns. In which is ensconsed his girlfriend, which his wife and daughters are fully aware of! (I don't get it either so don't ask me how it works.) But he fully supports the girlfriend too who refuses to work and loots his pockets regularly. In fact in the seven years that I have known him I have never known him to have any less than two girlfriends at any one time. Normally whom he supports in part or fully! Betwixt the two households every time he makes 25 cents the tribe of women in his life the girlfriends, miscellaneous random chicks that he bootie calls on, and the wife in addition to his three grown daughters who also loot his pockets regularly! He gives his women at least 22 of the 25 cents and more often than not he is broke or next to it while they are running around spending his money and he works putting in 16-20 hours a day at work. (where he finds the enrgy I don't know so don't ask me that either!) Pay attention here though because here's the thick of the plot, or the pleasant surprise that I got from him the other day. He had mentioned once about 4 or 5 years ago that his 16 year old daughter was dating a black kid and that he liked the guy. He bubbled like a girl about all of the fine qualities this guy has and how well he treats his daughter. (color me shocked at the time since I am a long time interracial dater and did not for one moment think previous to this that he who is so white he is almost clear! Would not only allow his daughter to date a black guy but that he saw good positive qualities in the afforementioned black guy!) Since that 'honorable mention' he had not mentioned the relationship again until the other day. I found out a week ago that he babysits his 9 month old grandaughter while his daughter works and goes to school. For what reason I do not know since his wife works only at shopping and spending his hard earned cash and so would be the more obvious choice. Any way he just commissioned another friend of ours to paint his granddaughter from a photo that he took of her at Christmas time (babies make terrible live models for artists!) When he stopped by the other day he proudly whips out this picture of his grandaughter and showed it to me. And I am not talking about a whimpy 3x5 wallet photo either but a 5x7 and then an 8x11 portrait of the grandaughter who in the origional photo is sitting in his lap next to his daughter and in the protrait it is a zoom of just the baby. Here'sthe pleasant surprise. His grandaughter is mulatto and looks exactly the same as my bi-racial daughters did at that age, and he is so tickled and proud of this baby and of his daughter who is getting great grades! He volunteeredto babysit the granddaughter every day while she's at work or school and also drives the daughter to work or school as he goes to pick the baby up most days and when he is too busy with work to babysit he pays some one else to do it for him to make life easier on his daughter and her boyfriend of almost 4 years whom I must say has two jobs to support the household as he doesn't think it is right that my friend should keep giving his daughter an allowance since she is grown, living in her own condo, and a mother herself now so he took another job while she was pregnant to make ends meet while also stashing money away towards the babies college education. Which I must say speaks highly of him! I was so pleasantly surprised at these revelations into his private life I am still reeling. I never expected him to approve of or condone the relationship let alone bust his butt even harder to help them out because they are young and they are struggling as young people do. And that he would juggle his schedule in order to babysit because he enjoys it! I say Bravo dude! Really he is such a nice guy that you can't find fault with his philandering ways. That has been the way the marriage was before they got married at ages 17 and 16 and he has always provided for hearth and home first and done whatever he had to do to do this.