By the time I reached the end, my hands were trembling. I could barely breathe. Stan tugged on my sleeve and asked, “Mommy, why are you crying?” I told him it was “just dust,” but inside, my heart was shattering for a woman I’d never met — a mother who had lost everything.
For days, I couldn’t stop thinking about her. Who was Anna? Was she still alive? I had to find out.
That was enough.
After a week of digging through community boards, obituaries, and Facebook groups, I found her: Anna Collins, late thirties, living just a few miles away. The next Saturday, I drove to her address, my heart pounding the whole way.
The house looked forgotten — paint peeling, weeds curling through cracks, curtains drawn tight. When I knocked, a frail woman with hollow eyes opened the door.
“Anna?” I asked quietly.
She stiffened. “Who’s asking?”
I held out the letter. “I found this. In a pair of shoes.”
Her face went pale. She took the paper with shaking hands and sank against the doorframe. “I wrote that when I thought I couldn’t keep living,” she whispered.
Without thinking, I reached out and held her hand. “But you’re still here,” I said softly. “That means something.”
In the weeks that followed, I kept visiting her. At first, she resisted, convinced she didn’t deserve kindness. But slowly, she opened up. She told me about Jacob — how he loved dinosaurs and pancakes, how he used to call her “Supermom” even when she felt broken.
I told her about my own struggles — my ex, Mason, walking out with our house; the nights I cried quietly so Stan wouldn’t hear.
“You kept going,” she said one afternoon.
“So can you,” I replied.
And she did.
Months later, Anna started volunteering at the children’s hospital, reading to kids fighting cancer. She’d call me after every shift, her voice brighter each time. “One of them called me Auntie Anna today,” she said once, laughing through tears.
Then one day, she showed up at my apartment holding a small box. Inside was a gold locket.
