Kindness repaid, big time

A 66-year-old woman nicknamed "Granny" lives in the Houston, Texas, area with her two granddaughters, ages 8 and 10. One of Granny's friends, Thomas Smith, is homeless, and Granny recently invited him to use her spare bedroom for a night. He was grateful, but worried that he would never be able to repay her kindness. But he did repay it, in spades.

Everyone in the house was sound asleep around 1:30 a.m. when Smith was wakened by a noise. Fearing a break-in, he went to the living room to investigate and discovered the house filling with smoke from a fire in the attic. Smith went to Granny's room where she was in bed covered with sheet rock that had fallen from the ceiling after the explosion. He helped her outside as quickly as possible, but the girls were asleep, so he re-entered the burning home, risking extreme heat and smoke, to pull both girls from their beds and carry them out the front door. Granny knows she and her granddaughters are lucky to be alive, thanks to her decision to be kind to a friend.