For a moment, I couldn’t speak.
I wasn’t sure what I felt guilt, sadness, anger, or just emptiness.
The officer gently explained that my mother had listed me as her emergency contact.
He handed me a small box and said, “She wanted you to have this.”
After he left, I stood in silence, not sure if I even wanted to open it.
As I finally lifted the lid, I found a worn-out photo of me as a child—maybe eight or nine—grinning with two missing teeth, my mom holding me from behind.
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