LEBANON, Tenn. (WTVF) — We love highlighting the people who just make our day better. A Lebanon mom had no idea how much her son was doing that for their entire community. It's come as a wonderful surprise.
"So far, my most favorite DC supervillain is Doomsday," said Warrick Mikaelian, 19, standing outside his Lebanon home. "I like how he proves a huge threat to Superman."
As he waited for his bus to Lebanon High, what I found about Warrick is he likes a good talk.
"I enjoy company!" he said.
Mom Allison Jordan said her son's always loved people.
"Warrick is just an awesome kid," she said. "He doesn't meet a stranger. He's autistic. He's very social, which I'm very proud of. There's something about him that brightens your day."
Allison's spent more time at the family's home lately during treatments for breast cancer.
"I had surgery, lumpectomy done, so I was home for three weeks," she explained.
It was during these mornings, she noticed something she'd never noticed before.
"Feels good!" Warrick said, waving at the cars driving by on their morning commute. "Yeah. It feels good. I wave at people. They wave back sometimes."
This seemed to be making quite an impression with people enthusiastically waving and honking at Warrick.
"It just took me aback!" Allison smiled.
Sometime over the past months, Warrick had up and become part of peoples' morning routines.
"They say, 'thank you for waving at me,'" Warrick said.
"Every morning as I went by, he would just offer his morning wave to me," said Alissa Slack. "It got to where I was looking for him every morning. It was just a precious thing to me to see him."
"Hi Warrick! Have a good day!" someone shouted out their car window.
"I hope so!" he shouted back.
People online started talking about how much they liked Warrick.
"Thousands of people have loved, shared, commented," Allison said.
Alissa gave the family a note.
"A happy life is about learning to appreciate the small things," Allison read from Alissa's note. "I wanted to express my sincere gratitude and happiness his morning wave brings to me. It may seem insignificant to some, but it means a lot to me. Thank you for touching my life in such a special way."
The guy who loves a little company has an idea why this has become a part of so many peoples' mornings.
"Makes them feel better!" Warrick said. "It seems nice."
"From a mom's point of view, he really did something exceptional, and I'm so proud of him," Allison said.
Do you have a positive, good news story? You can email me at forrest.sanders@newschannel5.com.
Fostering Hope provides Christmas for kids in foster care. I'm delighted to see Fostering Hope expand this year to expand their reach to now include kids in Foster care in metro AND foster kids in East TN hard hit by Helene.
-Bree Smith
