Last Christmas, our office did a Secret Santa exchange.
My coworker, Natalie, drew my name and gave me a delicate silver ring with a small green stone.
It felt surprisingly personal for an office gift, but she simply said she had found it at a little antique shop and thought I would like it.
I wore it constantly.
Almost a year later, while cleaning it, I noticed a tiny groove around the stone.
Curious, I twisted the top.
It opened.
Inside was a tiny folded piece of paper.
Only two words were written on it:
“Keep going.”
I sat there staring.
Years earlier, after my older brother died, he had left me a handwritten note with those exact words.
I had never told anyone at work about it.
The next morning, I asked Natalie where she had bought the ring.
She gave me the name of a small estate shop across town.
I went there that afternoon.
The owner checked his records and told me the ring had come from a box of personal belongings purchased from an old apartment clearance.
Then he mentioned the address.
I froze.
My brother had lived in that building years ago.
I’ll never know for certain whether the ring had actually belonged to him or whether the note had been placed there for someone else.
Maybe it was coincidence.
Maybe not.
But standing there with that tiny note in my hand, I suddenly felt connected to a part of my life I thought was gone forever.
Natalie had believed she was giving me a pretty antique ring.
Instead, she unknowingly returned two words I had needed once before.
And somehow, I needed them again.
