She was always alone. Never smiled. People avoided her, calling her the “angry neighbor” who might snap at any moment.
Last month, she passed away. Since I’d lived in the building the longest, the police asked me to join them while they checked her apartment.
Inside, the dim room was lined with shelves filled with neatly labeled boxes.
One had my name on it.
My hands shook as I opened it. Inside were pieces of my childhood—drawings I’d slipped under her door, little notes, even a newspaper clipping from when I won a school award.
She had saved everything.
Looking around, I saw boxes with other neighbors’ names too. She had quietly kept birthday flyers, community photos, even lost items—small fragments of all our lives.
The woman we thought was bitter had been preserving our memories.
Maybe she didn’t know how to show warmth. Maybe loneliness built walls she couldn’t cross. But this was her way of caring.
We judged her by her silence.
Behind it was a heart that had been paying attention all along.