There was an elderly woman in my neighborhood—small, fragile, always wearing the same faded shawl. She’d quietly ask for food or change for medicine. Most people avoided her. Not because she was rude—but because she reminded them what loneliness looks like when it grows old.
I stopped sometimes. Gave her a sandwich. A few dollars. She always thanked me with a gentle smile, full of dignity. I just didn’t want her to feel invisible.
One morning, I learned she had died. Alone.
Days later, a man claiming to be her distant relative contacted me. “She left something for you.”
Her apartment was almost empty—no bed, no furniture. But the walls were covered in stunning paintings. Oceans. Skies. Faces full of emotion.
“She was once a famous artist,” he said. “After her daughter died, she stopped selling.”
She left every painting to me.
Not because I was special.
But because I saw her.
Sometimes, being seen is the greatest inheritance of all.
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