Gregory Jonson assumed there was something to be enthusiastic about when he spotted an elderly man in a wheelchair purchasing a bouquet of red roses and a cake since there is no better way to celebrate a joyous occasion than with cake and red roses.

According to a post that was made by Johnson on Facebook, “He had a dozen roses and a huge birthday cake in his cart.”

“I remarked to you that it seemed like you have a busy evening scheduled ahead of you. He then proceeded to tell me his story while looking up at me with the saddest eyes I’m pretty sure I’ve ever seen.

The individual, who identified himself only as Jim, stated that his wife Gloria had passed away five years earlier.

Jim initiated the annual practice of placing roses out on his kitchen table and cutting two slices of cake for him and his wife on their anniversary as a way of celebrating his wife on the occasion of her birthday.

My heart literally just shattered. I was utterly heartbroken, and he appeared to be in shattered pieces as well.

“And I knew that I wanted to do everything I could do in that time to take his mind off of his sadness,” Johnson told CBS News.

“I wanted to do whatever I could do to make him forget about the pain he was feeling.” “Therefore, I started questioning him about their life together, and I believe that his reminiscing helped him feel better.”

When given the opportunity to speak, Jim delightedly related the story of how he first met Gloria in high school.

At the time, she was a cheerleader for the basketball team that was his nemesis. Following the victory of his team, he sent her an invitation to watch him play the following night, which was the beginning of what would become a marriage that lasted for 53 years.

Jim and Johnson wound up talking for the better part of an hour and a half inside the supermarket. Soon after, the manager of the Kroger store contacted them and revealed that he had been taking pictures of Jim each year with his flowers to commemorate the occasion.

Jim’s flowers were a tradition for the manager. The manager overheard the two guys talking, so he asked if he could take a photo of the two of them together.

According to Johnson, the contrast between the two photographs was very obvious.

“Now there was a smile on his face when in the earlier picture, a sad defeated man was captured with his roses and birthday cake,” she said.

Johnson remarked on Facebook that the subject of his post was “happy in the moment.”

After that, Jim extended an invitation to Johnson to return to his residence in Greenwood, Indiana, in order to partake in the cake and commemorate Gloria’s birthday.

Johnson expressed his gratitude by stating that he would be “honored” to accept.

The evening ultimately consisted of the two gentlemen talking the night away, looking at old images of Gloria, and reflecting on times gone by.

Johnson claims that they have decided to go out to lunch together in the near future in order to continue developing their new friendship.

Johnson stated in his letter that “maybe I made that little old man’s night a wee bit better” and that “he surely made mine one of the nicest I’ve had in a long time.”