Later, I drove to her apartment to help sort through her things. She’d always lived simply—a one-bedroom place on the edge of town, filled with crocheted blankets, faded photos, and the soft scent of lavender.
On the kitchen table sat a small box, neatly wrapped with a thin blue ribbon. Beside it was a folded note with my name on it.
I froze.
It took me a moment to breathe. Then I sat down and opened the box. Inside were two leather-bound sketchbooks and a set of graphite pencils—the exact ones I’d admired in a craft shop months ago but never bought.
Her note, written in her careful, looping handwriting, read:
“You always believed in my stories. I wanted you to have the tools to tell your own.”
That’s when I broke.
I don’t know how long I sat there crying. But when I finally pulled myself together, the pieces began to fall into place. That $60 she’d asked for—it wasn’t for bills or groceries. It was for this.
Her final purchase was a gift for me.
I thought back to all the times we’d sat at that table, her telling stories she never finished, poems she never published, sketches she never showed. When I was little, she’d read me her stories before bed—tales of courage, forgiveness, and finding light in ordinary places.
I always brushed it off. But sitting there with her final gift in my hands, I realized—she meant it.
She believed in me long before I ever did.Continue reading…
