An older adult woman in a floral blouse with red flowers, sitting on an ornate chair indoors at a nursing home. A younger adult staff member is present nearby. 4:40
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Her library boy grew up to be Denzel Washington

On her 99th birthday, Connie gets a phone call from a boy she once signed up at her library. The boy is Denzel Washington. more

Someone at the nursing home answers, thanks Denzel and puts the phone on speaker. "Can you hear him, Connie?" She can. She tells him she is in a nursing home now, and she has been thinking of her clearest, most wonderful memory.

It's the day he came in to join the library. "You were the cutest kid," she tells him. "I've thought of you as my special library boy for 50 years."

It means a lot to her that a busy man would take the time to call, and she tells him so. She remembers him coming in with his mom, back when he lived close to the library.

She has so many wonderful people in her memory, she says, but he stands out. They both remember the skinny little books. All the kids wanted one, so they could read it on Sunday and report on Monday.

She once just missed him, when he visited someone in her town on the day she arrived. So he makes a plan. He'll be in Atlanta in December, he tells her, and he's going to come and see her. "That would be my Christmas present," Connie says.

An older adult woman in a floral blouse with red flowers, sitting on an ornate chair indoors at a nursing home. A younger adult staff member is present nearby. The headline runs in white letters across the lower third.Save
On her 99th birthday, Connie gets a phone call from a boy she once signed up at her library.

He wishes her a happy birthday and makes it a promise. "I will see you in December. So you wait for me." They say "I love you" before they hang up.

When the call ends, someone tells her, "He's coming to see you." "Holy cow," Connie says. "See, when I talk about him, it's true." The story she has told so many times was a real memory for him, too.

With an A-list actor on the way, someone jokes, they might need to barricade the road. "I think I'm Queen Mary," comes the reply, and the birthday wishes start up again.