I moved to a broken-down farm I’d just inherited, hoping for peace. But when my neighbor copied my yellow fence, I had no idea it was just the beginning of something much deeper and personal.
I grew up in a foster family that did their best. They were kind and patient, always packed my lunch, and clapped at my school plays, even when I stood in the back wearing a cardboard tree costume.
But real love is more than warm meals and polite claps. It’s… knowing where you come from.
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No one ever told me anything about my biological parents. The papers said they’d asked for complete confidentiality. No names. No birthdays. No stories. Just a blank space where something big should’ve been.
I used to dream that maybe they were spies. Or rock stars. Or lost somewhere in the jungle. Anything was better than the thought that they didn’t care.
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I grew up fast. By 15, I was already handing out flyers outside strip malls.
At 16, I walked dogs for people who barely remembered my name. At 18, I poured coffee for grumpy regulars who tipped in nickels and gave life advice I didn’t ask for.
“You should marry rich, sweetheart. You’ve got kind eyes.”
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By 19, I was an official barista with a crooked name tag and memorized drink orders. Then came more jobs. Caregiver. Mail carrier. Gardener. For a while, I even collected roadkill off the highway.
Don’t ask. No, really—don’t.
I knew how to survive. But it felt like bad luck ran in my DNA.
By 27, I landed my dream office job. A stable paycheck. Weekends off. It felt like winning.
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On the same day, I got sick. Six months of tests, doctors shrugging.
“Could be stress.”
Yeah, no kidding.
At 30, I became a nanny. The other nanny claimed I stole money from the family. I didn’t, but I got fired. I stood outside the building with one suitcase, my emergency fund stuffed in my jacket pocket, and a thousand-yard stare.
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Then my phone rang.
“Ellie? It’s Jake, your father’s attorney,” a warm voice said.
“My who?”
“Your father, Henry. He passed away recently. You’ve been named the sole heir of his farm. It’s about 30 kilometers out of town. You can pick up the keys tomorrow.”
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“A farm?” I repeated. “A father?”
“Biological,” he said gently. “I’ll explain more in person.”
I didn’t sleep a minute that night. I had a father. He left me a home. For the first time in my life, something belonged to me.
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***
When I pulled up to the farm, I sat there for a minute, staring at the house, the fields, the silence. One question circled in my head like a fly that wouldn’t leave me alone.
Why did he leave it to me?
The house looked tired. Chipped paint peeled away from the walls, and weeds covered the yard. But then I saw the barn. It was clean. The red paint was fresh, and the doors were straight and solid. It looked proud.
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Curious, I stepped inside. The scent of hay hit me first. The floor was swept. Neat stacks of hay lined the walls.
A row of fresh eggs sat in a basket like someone had just collected them. A bucket of water glistened in the corner, clean enough to drink.
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And then there were the animals. Chickens clucked softly, pecking the straw. A big brown-and-white cow stood calmly, blinking at me.
The dog was the strangest part. He sat by the door like he’d been waiting for me. His fur was a little shaggy. I crouched.
“Come here, boy…”
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He trotted over and licked my hand like we’d known each other for years.
“Okay, weird,” I said softly, glancing around. “Who’s been feeding you?”
It had been a week since my father had passed away.
So… who’s been taking care of all this? Must’ve been the neighbors.
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I dropped my bag by the door and looked around inside the house. Dust floated through the sunlight like lazy snowflakes.
On the wall hung a single photo. A man in his 50s. His eyes were warm. My chest ached just looking at him—my father.
I sat on the floor and looked around. I didn’t know that man. Didn’t know that farm. But somehow, I wasn’t scared. I stayed.
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***
Each morning, I woke up with a purpose. I fixed the fence, painted the porch, and learned how to collect eggs without getting pecked.
I wasn’t sure how, but I just knew what to do. It was like something inside me had clicked—a secret switch.
“Farmer Mode ON.”
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But just as I started to feel at home, she showed up.
Linda. My neighbor.
At first, I thought she was just shy. Then, I thought she was a little odd.
Then, she… started copying everything I did. That’s when things started to get weird.
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***
“What the…?”
I froze by the kitchen window, a spoonful of cereal halfway to my mouth.
Just the day before, I had painted my fence bright yellow. It was the only can of paint I found in the shed, and I was on a budget. The paint smelled awful, but the fence looked cheerful.
At that moment, staring across the property line, I saw Linda’s fence. It was also yellow, the same shade.
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“Maybe just a coincidence.”
The next day, I built a new mailbox. I was proud of it—wooden, with a tiny sloped roof and a carved little bird sitting on top. It took me all afternoon and three Band-Aids.
I stepped back and said aloud, “You nailed it, Ellie.”
The following morning, I stepped outside… and there it was. Linda’s mailbox. Same shape. Same roof. The exact same bird.
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“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I muttered, clutching my coffee cup.
I tried to be polite and waved to Linda when I saw her outside. She never waved back—just scurried into her barn like I’d caught her doing something illegal.
But then came the daisies. They were my favorite. I planted them in a curved line near my front steps.
The next morning?
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Linda had the same daisies. Same curve. The same little row of stones was around them. I walked outside and just stared at her yard.
Is she watching me? Copying me on purpose?
I tried to brush it off until yoga.
One sunny morning, I rolled my mat on the grass and started my usual routine. Just some stretches to loosen up.
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When I looked over, Linda was wobbling in my exact pose.
She was wearing jeans and a floppy hat. She was copying again.
That was it. My patience was gone. I marched across the yard and knocked on her wooden gate.
“Hey, Linda! We need to talk!”
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The door creaked open slowly. She stood there, still, silent. Her dark eyes met mine. Wide. Serious. A little scared.
“Why are you copying everything I do? What do you want from me?!”
She didn’t answer. Just stepped back and nodded slightly.
I followed her into the house. That’s when I saw them.
Letters. Dozens of them. Scattered on the table. All addressed to me.
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“What are these?”
She picked up the top one and handed it to me. Her fingers shook. I opened it.
“My dear Ellie,
I don’t know how to talk to you. I don’t know if you’d even want to listen.
But I am… your mother. I lived near your father. We were never officially divorced, but we lived apart. When you were born, I was… different.
I have autism.
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Life overwhelmed me. Your father decided it would be best if a stable, loving family raised you. But I always knew about you. And when he died, I took care of the farm. And then you came…
I didn’t know how to approach you or how to speak.
So I started doing what you did.
It was my way… of being close.”
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I reread the letter. And again.
“You…” I looked up.
She stood still, barely breathing. I reached for another letter—an older one. A photo fell out. Young Linda was holding a toddler, both smiling.
“Is this…?”
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“That’s my daughter. Ellie.”
“Me?”
“My daughter,” she repeated softly. “You’re Ellie.”
Suddenly… I don’t know why, but… I turned and ran. Back to my yard. Past the daisies. Past the mailbox.
And I cried. I didn’t know how to fix anything, and I didn’t know if I was ready for it.
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***
A few days passed.
I stayed inside. No reading, no coffee, no watering the daisies. I just lay on the couch, watching shadows crawl across the ceiling, hoping they’d spell out something that made sense.
I wasn’t sick. Not in a way any doctor could fix. It was the kind of ache that fills your chest and makes everything feel… weightless and heavy at the same time.
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I thought that knowing the truth would bring peace.
But instead of closure, I found a mother. And somehow, that unraveled me more than all the years I’d spent wondering.
Then, one morning, I opened the front door. A stack of letters—thick envelopes tied with string—sitting quietly on my doorstep.
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I took them inside with trembling hands. Each envelope was marked with a year. One letter for every year of my life. Thirty letters.
I read the first. Then, the second. Then, all of them.
Each one was handwritten in a neat, careful script. Some had drawings. Others had dried petals tucked inside. All were full of emotion, wonder, sorrow… and love.
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So much love.
Linda wrote to me every year—for birthdays, first days of school I never told her about, and college she didn’t even know I’d never finished. She imagined it all, sending wishes into the void.
I cried over every single page. Sobbed. Because for the first time in my life, I didn’t feel forgotten.
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On the third morning, I opened the door again.
The flowerbeds had been watered. The animals were fed. The yard looked freshly swept.
A folded note was tucked under a jar of jam left on the porch.
“Saved the milk in my fridge.
Love, Mom”
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Mom.
I held the note in my hands and stared at that one word.
For the first time, it didn’t feel imaginary. I had a mother—a quiet, complicated, awkward woman who showed love not through words but through letters and gestures.
And I realized… maybe it wasn’t her who had failed me. Perhaps it was the situation. The way life broke apart before either of us could hold it together.
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Dad’s guilt now lives with me: in these walls, in this land, in the silence he left behind. But I have the power to rewrite the ending.
Right then, I made a decision. I stepped out into the morning sun. Barefoot, like always.
Linda was in her yard, wobbling in a half-hearted yoga pose, her sunhat nearly falling over her eyes. But she was trying—still trying.
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My heart ached. I walked toward the fence.
“That’s… the warrior pose. I’m not a huge fan either.”
She froze, then slowly turned. A small, shy smile tugged at her lips.
“You’re doing great,” I added. “But you’ll do better without the hat.”
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She took it off, smoothed the brim with her fingers, and laid it gently on the grass. Then, she moved into the tree pose. She wobbled and fell over sideways.
I really laughed—for the first time in days.
“Okay,” I said, stepping closer to the fence. “Let’s make a deal. I’ll show you one pose, and you try it. But… no more mailbox copying.”
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“Okay,” she whispered.
“You’ll do better if you relax your fingers.”
And we stood there—both of us—finally on the same side of the yard, under the same sky. A little clumsy. A little unsure. But no longer alone.
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Later, we made tea at my place. I pointed to the photo from her letter.
“That photo… that’s you?”
She nodded.
“And my daughter Ellie. It’s you and me.”
“I’ve read all the letters. Thank you, Mom.”
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She clutched her teacup with both hands.
“Can I… try that one pose tomorrow? The one with the leg in the air?”
I nodded. We both smiled. Then we laughed. And somehow, it felt like life was finding its color again.
And you know what?
That yellow fence didn’t seem so weird anymore. Maybe it was the beginning. Just like us.
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A struggling young mother purchases an old washing machine she could hardly afford, only to discover a note inside
Jessica wanted to buy a $250 washing machine, but she couldn’t afford it, so she had to ask the seller for a discount. He consented right away, to her surprise, but when she got home and opened the machine, she discovered something even more surprising inside.
When Jessica and her husband Edward welcomed their first child, Kathy, they quickly understood that parenting would not be easy. The young parents were having financial difficulties then, and there was constantly a lack of funds.
Edward owned a textile business in Texas, but it was struggling. Meanwhile, Jessica worked as a nanny on weekends while Edward looked after Kathy. With a baby at home now, expenses went up, while income stayed the same or even went down some months.
Ahh, it must be challenging for them too. Perhaps more difficult. Jessica reflected as she drove away from work one weekend, glancing at her neighbor Sandra and her children.
Sandra was already raising a third child even though her husband was just a truck driver. Although he got paid on a piecemeal basis, he wasn’t rowing millions of dollars there. Sandra had been working on a farm for several years to help support her husband financially, and it was the only way they could make ends meet.
Jessica and Edward, like their neighbors, were scraping by on whatever they could. Edward had stopped going to bars with friends to conserve money after Kathy’s arrival, and Jessica had given up on the little things she had managed to buy after saving money from the monthly budget.
Luckily, one month, things were going well financially. Edward’s business grew slowly but steadily, and Jessica managed to save some money. But just when it appeared like they would be having a less stressful month, another problem knocked at her door: the washing machine broke down.
After considering her options, Jessica realized that there was no point in getting the machine repaired. The labor and motor replacement cost would be slightly less than the cost of a new machine, and there was no guarantee that the repaired equipment would last as long. After all, this was the fourth time the machine demanded a repair in the same year.
Knowing there was no other option but to look for a new machine, Jessica sat down on the computer, looking for an affordable one. An hour of searching led her to one suitable find, but it cost $250, and Jessica could only afford to pay $150.
In the end, she decided to see the merchant in person and request a discount right then and there. James Carter, 1216 East Madison Street, Brownsville, TX, said the advertisement. Jessica made a note of the owner’s address.
Upon arrival, a man about Jessica’s age opened the door. There was a calmness in his eyes, but the dark circles beneath them revealed inner stress and exhaustion. “How may I assist you?” he asked, his voice deep but mournful.
“Hi, are you James Carter? I’m Jessica Turner. I messaged you regarding the washing machine. Can I have a look at it?”
“Oh, Jessica. Yes, sure. Come in,” James said, and Jessica followed him in.
The entire house was in shambles, and Jessica deduced from the disorganized layout that the man was planning to relocate, which was why he’d put the machine up for sale. As she entered the room next to the hall, she saw the white washing machine. It appeared to look brand new, precisely as she’d seen it online.
“Well, I hope you remember I said I wanted to talk about the price,” Jessica said, having viewed the machine from the exterior. “I can’t afford to pay $250! I agree the machine still looks brand new and everything, but I can’t extend my budget beyond $150. We just had a baby, and you know things are not so well financially, so I was wondering if you could please give me a discount?”
James stood there silent for a while, pondering, and then nodded his head in agreement. “Sure. I don’t mind. $150 sounds like a good deal to me,” he said absentmindedly and then turned around to lift the machine.
Jessica’s eyes widened in surprise. “Really? Thank you! Thank you so much!”
James gave Jessica a slight smile and the woman could sense that his thoughts had wandered beyond the room in that short while, but she didn’t bother much about it as she was rejoicing in luck.
After 5 minutes, the two of them carried the huge machine to Jessica’s car without gloves, belts, or loading belts, huffing and sweating. She’d already paid James and was looking forward to getting the machine home.
As she prepared to leave, she gave her hand to say goodbye and asked him to meet her somewhere in the future, but James’ answer was a flat no. “I’m leaving this place for good, and I won’t be returning, so I don’t think we’ll be meeting again. Anyway, I hope the machine is useful to you,” he said with a quick but honest smile. Jessica simply smiled at the odd response and thanked him once more before leaving.
When she got home, the first thing she did was double-check the equipment’s functionality. However, as she opened the dryer to check the lint filter, she was shocked to find $150 in there.
It also contained a folded piece of paper in one corner with a message. “It’s a gift for your newborn baby,” it read. “I didn’t think it was fair to ask for money from someone who was already struggling financially.
“As a result, I chose to return it. Someone very close to my heart once told me that if I have the resources, I should help those who are less fortunate.” Jessica was shocked. When did he place this inside the machine?
Suddenly, it hit her. She’d asked him to help her move the machine to the yard while she fetched ropes from the car trunk to pack the machine properly, and it’s possible that’s when he put it there.
Jessica wanted to express her gratitude to him for his assistance. However, because he didn’t provide a phone number on the website and returning to the house would be a two-hour journey from her home, she decided to see him the next day.
Unfortunately, it was too late by then, as the man had already left the house, and a for sale sign was posted in the yard. Jessica left the house dejected, thanking him once more in her heart.
One year later…
Jessica and Edward were finally moving into a larger home. Kathy had been accepted to a good school, and Edward’s business was doing well.
Jessica was standing on the balcony of her former house, surveying the area where she’d spent most of her days. The place held a lot of memories for her. She switched her sights to Sandra’s residence and overheard Sandra and her husband bickering over purchasing a new washing machine.
Jessica took a look at the wet linen-laden rope on Sandra’s terrace. Oh, that poor woman must have done all the laundry herself. I should do something to help her.
So before leaving, she rang the doorbell at Sandra’s and left the washing machine on her doorstep with a note that read, “With love from your neighbor, Jessica.”
Jessica saw how happy Sandra was when she opened the door and spotted the machine on her porch.
So this was how James felt when he helped me. Ahh, honestly, it does feel amazing. However, I’m still curious about who encouraged him and asked him to assist people in need. Jessica pondered as their car sped away to their new destination.
What can we learn from this story?
Never hesitate to assist someone in need if you have the means to do so. The way Jessica helped Sandra and James helped Jessica are beautiful examples of this.
Learn to emulate the goodness of your surroundings. Jessica was inspired by James’ example and stepped in to assist Sandra.
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