One morning, Sylwek saw a notice on a poster pillar about a chess tournament for children and adults. The boys are total chess freaks, so as soon as we told them about it, they immediately wanted us to sign them up.

The first day of the competition arrived. The boys were very excited! In the first round, Marcel came to me after about 45 minutes, looking sad. He had lost. He started crying. It wasn’t easy for him. He wanted to go home straight away. I hugged him and listened. It took quite a while, but eventually, he felt better.

And so it went for the whole day. Marcel kept losing, although after almost every game, he would mention how kind his opponents were.

The next day, Marcel was losing again. He wanted to go home. I hugged him and hugged him, all the while observing my thoughts, which began to swirl in my head: “What can I do?”, “I don’t know how else I could help him…”, until suddenly, I said to him, surprised by my own words:

“Marcel! Do you know how amazing you are?!! You’re giving all those children you’ve played against a gift! Thanks to you, they can feel good about winning! Maybe that’s why you were meant to be at this tournament and play until the end, so others could experience that feeling.”

“Really?” Marcel asked in a soft and curious voice.

“You’re like Father Christmas! Saint Marcel! You’re giving out gifts, and what gifts they are!” As I said this, a pleasant, warm shiver ran through my body.

Marcel went to the next round, skipping along. He returned after 10 minutes with a slight smile on his face.

“I lost,” he said, “but you know, Mum, it was even better than winning because that boy was very kind to me. At the end, he showed me what I did wrong and how I could have arranged the chess pieces differently to win the game.”