We did too.
A year later, I proposed on the same swing set she’d once sketched. She said yes.
Of the girl with no lunch and shoes too big.
Of the cheese sandwich.
Of the letters.
Of the nurse who walked into my hospital room and changed everything.
People laughed. People cried.
Amy stood beside me, radiant.
“You saved me,” I said into the mic. “And I didn’t even know it.”
She whispered back, “You saved me first.”
Now we run a little art café in town.
She paints in the back room. I brew coffee.
Outside, a sign reads: Don’t be shy if you’re hungry. We’ve been there.
Sometimes kids walk in alone, wearing clothes that aren’t theirs, eyes quiet.
Amy always notices. She brings them cocoa and a smile.
When I ask what she said, she always replies, “Just reminded them they’re important.”
Here’s the truth:
Life isn’t always fair. But kindness — real kindness — doesn’t disappear.
It waits. Quietly. Until the moment it’s needed most.
Sometimes it returns as a nurse.
Sometimes as love.
Sometimes as a second chance.
Because it matters.
It always does.
