What was I doing when I was 13? Chances are it involved a game controller or maybe, from time to time, a bike. I guarantee you that any yard work was done with utmost reluctance and under protest, and that the game controller would be back in hand at my first opportunity.
In retrospect, it's amazing that I grew up to be a decently well-rounded adult. Of course, I'm also pretty sure I was a perfectly average teenager — which makes William Preston one heck of a kid.
He, his mother, Krystal, and his two siblings were facing some tough times, having had to start life over suddenly.
He could see that his mom was troubled, trying to feed them all and keep a roof over their heads with no means of transportation.
Helping out is in his character.
"He loves helping people," his mom wrote on a GoFundMe. "He does all [kinds] of work and loves to learn new trades then he even got awarded a trip for a week by the city of Fernley for helping around town and cleaning up the streets and yards of many people. He is always trying to make people smile."
Knowing that she needed a way around town, William bought his mom a car. "I saw on YouTube where people get their mom a car and then surprise her with it," he told local news station KOLO. "I wanted to do that."
"It was really cheap so I asked her if I could trade or earn it, and at first she said no and after she thought about it, then she said yes." William earned the money doing yard work around his community, saving up and even trading in his XBox.
William took her out to the driveway, where the seller stood. She drove the pair to her house to pick up the car. "I lost it, I bawled, I was just like, there's no way," Krystal said. "And then she gave me the paperwork and the keys."
However, it comes with some mixed feelings. "The fact that my kid did this, I'm proud but as a mom I'm supposed to take care of my kids, I'm supposed to do this, not the other way around," she said.
"At my low point, here comes my son," she said. "Everybody goes through rough patches in their life, but there's some good that can come from any situation as long as somebody with a heart does it."
"What 13-year-old buys their mom a car? I don't know any," Krystal said. "I can't even express it; there are no words that can express my gratitude and how proud I am."
Krystal should probably pat herself on the back a bit, because she's clearly raised a good kid.
h/t KOLO
