An elderly woman called 911 one night, shaken as she reported someone standing in her backyard. Officers found her front door unlocked and discovered her sitting by the window, staring into the garden.
She said she’d seen a tall, still figure near her rose bushes—familiar, not threatening. When they asked if she recognized it, she quietly admitted she did. Her husband, who had tended those roses every evening, had died years before.
The officers searched the yard with her. Nothing was disturbed, but an old jacket hung on the fence—her husband’s gardening coat, which she thought she had given away. Seeing it, she clutched it and cried softly.
Once she felt calm, the officers left. Sitting again by the window, she realized she wasn’t afraid anymore.
Some loves don’t vanish—they return in the quiet.
