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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.
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.
In a corner, beneath a faded armchair, lay a wooden box filled with postcards, holiday cards, and little notes I had handed out over the years—Halloween treats, Christmas greetings, random notes meant to bring a smile. Every single one had been kept. Some bent from being held, others taped carefully to preserve them. Each piece handled with reverence.
“She told her social worker you were the only one who ever showed her kindness without expecting anything in return,” the officer said quietly.
I froze.
“She didn’t trust people,” he added, “but she trusted you.”
