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:
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.
She’d laugh and say, “Someday, you’ll write better ones.”
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…
