A family in Northern Ireland is praising a man they don’t know, calling him ‘An absolute gent of a man’.
On Monday, Leah O’Brien, from Derrytrasna, accompanied her sister to a nearby bakery to pick up a birthday cake for her niece, Akeelah Rose — but once they got to the shop, the workers revealed the cake had already been paid for by an anonymous man.
The bakery then told the sisters than a man came into the bakery earlier that morning and wanted to pay for the little girls birthday cake. The man stated that his daughter passed away at just 8-days old, and he wanted to purchase a cake for another little girl since he never had the chance to buy one for his.
In addition to the cake, the man also left a birthday card for O’Brien’s niece, “which you could only imagine left the whole bakery in tears,” she wrote on Facebook.
“Dear Birthday Girl,” the card read. “In honor of what would have been my little girl’s 1st birthday, I have chosen to pay for your birthday cake. I am unable to buy my daughter a cake of her own today, but I hope you enjoy this one and have a fantastic birthday. God bless.”
He signed the card simply, “Hannah’s Daddy.”
The family took the story to Facebook and within an hour, over 50 came forward to say that the mystery dad was ‘Gareth Bronte’, who also runs a fundraiser for the neonatal ward of the hospital where his daughter passed.