A woman has shared her heartache after making an unexpected discovery in a charity shop – and it made her stop and think about the people behind the donations we find
When visiting a charity shop, you can never be quite sure what you’ll come across. But one woman got a shock when she came across a heartbreaking note stashed inside an unwanted purse.
She shared the upsetting message on Reddit, saying: “Looks to be a journal entry or grief exercise? I hope whoever wrote this doing okay now.” The note, dated December 16, 2008, shows how the writer visited the beach and found three golf balls on her day out. It goes on to explain how they went downtown and “got lots of stuff” before their emotions got the better of them and they started to cry.
While the woman who found the $11 (£8) purse decided against buying it, she hopes the person who donated it received the help they needed.
Commenting on the post, one user said: “Grief is a hard moment in time to encounter. At times we are stuck in that moment in time a bit longer than we should [be].”
Another user added: “Could it be a rough draft of a poem or a song maybe? I don’t know because I can’t exactly see what is written on the letter, so that’s my guess.”
A third user said: “Sounds like she had a soul cleansing day.” One more user added: “This sounds like a widow dealing with grief. Hope she’s better now.”
Another user said: “Lovely and heartfelt. I would hold onto that, probably in a frame. We’re all there at some point. I recently lost my parents 13 months apart. My mum lost hers at a very young age three months apart.”
Writing down your emotions in a journal can help you process your grief in a few different ways – whether or not you reread your entries after dotting them down.
A statement from Grief Recovery Center reads: “[A journal] can be a place for you to write down things you don’t want to forget about the person you’re grieving.
“You can write letters to them, even though they can’t read them. Journaling can help you preserve the memory of your loved one.
“It can also be beneficial to consider that we are mortal beings, especially when dealing with loss.
“This isn’t to say that your journaling time should be focused on death and dying by any means.
“However, research has shown that considering the fact that we are inevitably going to die not only helps us get over the fear of death, but it can also help us be inspired to make the most of the time we do have in life.
“Thinking about death a lot might sound macabre, but it can help make death less scary and unknowable.”
It comes after a man shared his delight over discovering the ‘perfect’ jacket when visiting a Goodwill store – but little did he know, there was much more to this jacket than it first seemed.
In a viral 2022 Reddit post that has recirculated online, the dad said: “While on vacation in Flagstaff, Arizona, this weekend, we naturally stop at our favourite store – the Goodwill – and he goes on his search for his jacket and I go skipping off to the knickknacks.”
The son went on to find the item and said the discovery “changed his life”. But it was after the boy tried on the jacket for a second time that they came to realise they’d struck gold twice that day.
