The Quiet Neighbor Who Taught Me the Power of Kindness

One officer nodded. “She listed you as her only contact.”

I was stunned. I wasn’t family. I wasn’t even a friend. I was a stranger. Yet, they needed someone to enter her apartment, sort through her possessions, and handle the paperwork. I agreed.

Stepping inside, a strange, almost frozen quiet settled over me. I expected dust, clutter, and the musty smell of a solitary life. What I found left me speechless.

Her living room walls were covered with framed drawings. Children’s drawings. My drawings.

Years ago, I had slipped crayon doodles under apartment doors in the building—stick figures, crooked houses, suns with jagged rays. I often left them at her door, thinking they would go unnoticed. But there they were, preserved, framed, and arranged like a tiny museum of childhood joy.

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