After a man's mother passed away, he was finding it hard to cope with the loss and often felt like crying. But then one day, when he was going through her things, he discovered something in a drawer that left him and the internet in tears. It was a letter from his beloved mother to him.
Image source: Pexels | Photo by Rose Dudley
Matt Gald (u/MattGald) shared a screenshot of the letter on Reddit. “A letter from my mom that I found after she passed away from cancer. I miss her every day and this makes me cry. But I cry with a smile on my face," he captioned it. "Just remember to tell the people you love how much they mean to you. And remind them every day that you love them.” Matt mentioned that his parents were diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. While his mother's battle with the disease started three and a half years ago, his father was diagnosed a couple of months ago. His mom breathed her last breath in January 2024 when his dad was "in the ICU from complications."
She had written her last letter, hoping that Matt would find it someday. When he began reading it, it brought a lump to his throat. “I hope you knew how much I loved you. You have the kindest soul of anyone I knew,” she wrote. "You were always there for me when I needed you. You quit your job knowing you would not have any income just so I would have someone to take me to treatments...I hope and pray that you are close to Kristie and Kyle. Family is everything." She also wished that he find the person of his dreams and spend his life happily with them.
She recalled her memories, saying that the best trip she had with him was to the Grounds of Sculpture. "I will always be watching over you. I always feared leaving you more than dying. You were the best son ever! Till we meet again!" read the last of her letter.
Image Source: Reddit | u/MattGald
Matt said he believes that he only gave her what she deserved and what she taught him to do for others. However, sadly, for Matt, the times have been rough. One month after his mother’s death, he lost his father (he shared in another Reddit post). Shortly after this, he got fired from his job.
Image Source: Reddit | u/MattGald
Matt might have been going through a challenging chapter of his life, but seeing the letter, people from around the world supported and inspired him to live his life again. A wave of emotional comments swept through his post. “I’m sorry for your loss but as long as you have love in your heart for her she will always be with you,” said u/Serious-mix5744. u/lechwretch responded to the post, “This is the sweetest thing ever, but I'm really hurting for you. I'm glad she had a son like you, and you had a mom like her.”
Image Source: Reddit | u/x-rojo-x
u/edmtorontocpl, who also lost their father a decade ago, added, “You'll never get over it, but you will learn to cope. It's going to be okay. Take deep breaths and go at your own pace. Sending love and strength.” Another Redditor who had lost their mother to cancer wrote that their mom left a letter, too. “I have a tattoo on my arm that’s a photocopy of a letter she wrote to me once. Helps me get through the bad days,” wrote u/jgasbarro.
Image Source: Reddit | u/this-wolverine7919
u/rarebird10, a mother who was going through a rare disease herself, said that her biggest fear was leaving her boys. She said that it was a beautiful gesture from her mother to write this letter for her son.
Image Source: Reddit | u/broad_monk6325
The letter might not be able to take away the pain that Matt has been feeling from his parent's loss. But on his good and bad days, his mother’s heartening message will be there by his side, acting as a token of love.
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Will your current friends still be with you after seven years?
Professor shares how many years a friendship must last before it'll become lifelong
Think of your best friend. How long have you known them? Growing up, children make friends and say they’ll be best friends forever. That’s where “BFF” came from, for crying out loud. But is the concept of the lifelong friend real? If so, how many years of friendship will have to bloom before a friendship goes the distance? Well, a Dutch study may have the answer to that last question.
Sociologist Gerald Mollenhorst and his team in the Netherlands did extensive research on friendships and made some interesting findings in his surveys and studies. Mollenhorst found that over half of your friendships will “shed” within seven years. However, the relationships that go past the seven-year mark tend to last. This led to the prevailing theory that most friendships lasting more than seven years would endure throughout a person’s lifetime.
In Mollenhorst’s findings, lifelong friendships seem to come down to one thing: reciprocal effort. The primary reason so many friendships form and fade within seven-year cycles has much to do with a person’s ages and life stages. A lot of people lose touch with elementary and high school friends because so many leave home to attend college. Work friends change when someone gets promoted or finds a better job in a different state. Some friends get married and have children, reducing one-on-one time together, and thus a friendship fades. It’s easy to lose friends, but naturally harder to keep them when you’re no longer in proximity.
Some people on Reddit even wonder if lifelong friendships are actually real or just a romanticized thought nowadays. However, older commenters showed that lifelong friendship is still possible:
“I met my friend on the first day of kindergarten. Maybe not the very first day, but within the first week. We were texting each other stupid memes just yesterday. This year we’ll both celebrate our 58th birthdays.”
“My oldest friend and I met when she was just 5 and I was 9. Next-door neighbors. We're now both over 60 and still talk weekly and visit at least twice a year.”
“I’m 55. I’ve just spent a weekend with friends I met 24 and 32 years ago respectively. I’m also still in touch with my penpal in the States. I was 15 when we started writing to each other.”
“My friends (3 of them) go back to my college days in my 20’s that I still talk to a minimum of once a week. I'm in my early 60s now.”
“We ebb and flow. Sometimes many years will pass as we go through different things and phases. Nobody gets buttsore if we aren’t in touch all the time. In our 50s we don’t try and argue or be petty like we did before. But I love them. I don’t need a weekly lunch to know that. I could make a call right now if I needed something. Same with them.”
Maintaining a friendship for life is never guaranteed, but there are ways, psychotherapists say, that can make a friendship last. It’s not easy, but for a friendship to last, both participants need to make room for patience and place greater weight on their similarities than on the differences that may develop over time. Along with that, it’s helpful to be tolerant of large distances and gaps of time between visits, too. It’s not easy, and it requires both people involved to be equally invested to keep the friendship alive and from becoming stagnant.
As tough as it sounds, it is still possible. You may be a fortunate person who can name several friends you’ve kept for over seven years or over seventy years. But if you’re not, every new friendship you make has the same chance and potential of being lifelong.