I Gave a Woman $6 to Help Pay for Baby Formula – the Next Day, My Manager Called Me over the Intercom and Handed Me an Envelope

For the rest of my shift, I could feel it against my hip every time I moved.

By the time I clocked out, my hands were shaking.

I went straight to my car, shut the door, and finally pulled the envelope out.

I ripped it open and slid out a few folded sheets of paper.

I unfolded the first:

“Dear Laura. I’m the woman you helped last night with the baby and the formula.

I wanted to say thank you. Not just for the six dollars, but for how you treated me.

You didn’t make me feel stupid or ashamed. You just helped.”

She wrote about skipping dinner. About doing the math in her head.

About realizing she was short and wanting to disappear. Then the letter changed.

“There’s something else I need to tell you. I was adopted as a baby.

I always knew there was a woman out there who had me and then let me go,” she wrote.

“My adoptive parents are good people, but they didn’t have many answers. I’ve wondered about her my whole life.”

I thought of my mom.

One night, when she’d had too much wine and started crying at the kitchen table.

She told me she’d had a baby before me.

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