My big surprise.

I was walking alone, it was a sad afternoon, at least that's how it felt to me. Seeing the dry leaves of the trees fall to the ground after the breeze whips them several times in the air made me feel my loneliness even more, they fall because of the breeze and I fall because of my feeling of loneliness.

I don't understand why today I feel as if life is hitting me, really life is giving me a lot of blows today. I left the office early, after the news I was given that I would be replaced immediately, I had no choice but to be impressed by something I didn't see coming.

I’m not a person to be in groups, I am encouraged in minorities. I am always trying to encourage the fallen, to mentor and teach others the things in life that have value. I know I’m only 25 years old but I have lived a life of battles to survive. I like that everyone has their own identity and that others respect them, even if that means I have to go against the current. And here I am now, after encouraging others so much, I am now a wounded bird.

I feel sad, desolate, jobless, friendless, family-less and hopeless. I'm still on the road, the breeze still hits my face and the streets are lonely, perhaps because the afternoon is ending to give way to the night. Today I’ll feel much more alone because I have no one to share my sadness with, no one is waiting for me at home, neither a cat nor a dog. I never wanted pets because I didn't have time to take care of them, leaving these precious animals all day just to keep me company at night never seemed like a great idea.

I kick some stones and small objects I find on my way while I am immersed in my thoughts about what I will do tomorrow, when I don't have to get up for work anymore.

I realize that I’m walking without direction to my house. I turn around so many times that now I don't know which direction to go to get back.

Something is wrong with the atmosphere. The gentle breeze is gone, now everything is dark, only the moonlight and the stars follow me on my way, but I'm retracing my steps even though I didn't notice the steps I took, I'll try to find my way.

There is someone walking alone on the other street, it’s a woman, she looks up and I see her at the same moment. I feel disturbed, it's a sad look on her face. It seems to me that she is going through a bad moment. The other part of my personality resurfaces in me, the one of being empathetic with people going through difficulties and as always I take a back seat.

She approaches me and I allow her to do so, and stop myself at the same time she does.

"Hello, what are you doing alone on the street at this hour...it's late for a lady alone."

"Hello…" she answers me "I'm walking because I have a pain deep inside me and I can't get home like this."  

"What's wrong with you? If I may ask. Sometimes strangers can provide solutions to other people's problems. If you don't mind, I'd like to know what it's about and if I can help you."

She begins to cry as quietly as she can, with uncontrollable tears. The tears well up in her eyes as if she has an open duct with no way to close it, but just like that she begins to tell me the story of her life.

"My parents are wealthy and very well off, they had a suitor for me but I turned down the offer of an arranged marriage, because I am in love with the kindest, smartest and hardest working being I ever met. But they don't want him in my family because he doesn't have money yet… But I know he will make it someday with his efforts”

“But it doesn't end there, with him I have lived the most beautiful moments of my life and I gave myself to him body and soul. My family doesn't know it yet but… I am pregnant".

 She opens her coat and shows me her bulging belly. And she continues...

"I know it won't be long before they find out because I won't be able to hide my belly… I love my child above anything in the world. I had to stay away from my love so that they wouldn’t retaliate against him… My parents even brought me to this place far away from him”

“He didn’t find out where I am, I was not allowed to tell him. I know he’s suffering thanks to my departure."

It’s now when she is silent that I appear as an intermediary and offer her my help. "You can count on me! Write something on a piece of paper and I promise to personally take your letter to him wherever he is!” To which she responds by opening her eyes wide and immediately her tears stop flowing.

She takes a piece of paper out of her coat and I lend her a pencil to write her words. We sit on the sidewalk while she writes. There was a protruding wall on the sidewalk to which I wiped it with my hands so she wouldn't get her coat dirty and I got ready to look at the stars and the moon while she went about her writing. There we stood for a long while as she engaged and wrote her letter, two small pages of something that seemed like a long time just to say that she was in this town, but who am I to direct her thoughts that capture her feelings on a paper.

She handed me her letter, folded. And on one part of it was written the address where I was to go.

I said to her.  "…This is in the other state. It will take me at least a day to get there, but I promise you I will go and find him."

And she very happily, without tears in her eyes thanked me, finally she just asked me for a hug and I give it to her. She squeezed me so tight, I imagine a product of her joy, but I couldn't say goodbye without first asking her name to which she answered me....

"Mery, my name is Mery Scott P."

 “And I’m Samantha Philbrick.”

We continued walking and said goodbye. Not before telling me that everything was written in the letter and that soon I would know more about her.

Just as she appeared in the darkness, she disappeared in the same way and I resumed my way home. Wondering about the situation of that beautiful lady and what would become of her life after the child was born.

In the morning I set out to go all the way on the bus that would take me to the address the lady of the night had given me. This whole affair had made me forget about my own personal situation. Now that I was out of work, I had to go out and look for a job as soon as possible. I had no close relatives, from what I was told, my parents died in an accident and I was taken to an orphanage by my grandparents who were too old to care for me and died. I never met them.

So I spent the whole bus ride thinking about my problems and how I would look for the man in the letter. 

I arrived at the appointed place. It was already very late, I decided to stay in a hotel, for tomorrow I would continue looking for the address. When I woke up, I took my things and went out ready. The address was not difficult to find, after asking around I got to a building. There I could read a sign where the name of the man in the letter was written as the General Manager of the company.

I asked at the reception desk and they kindly told me how to get to Mr. Peter Smith's office, in a short time I was attended by Mr. Smith. He looked familiar to me but I don't know why I seemed to know him… He asked me the reason for my visit to which I told him what happened to me last night.

The more I related to him the unusual way in which I met that beautiful lady in distress, the more he changed his face from smiling to a notch almost stunned at what I told him and at the end he asks me for the letter. As he stood up and walked towards the large window of his office, he kept turning and looking at me while reading his letter. I asked him if I should stay and wait or if I could leave, to which he answered.

"Please make yourself comfortable and don't withdraw, I will soon give you a summary of all this."

I sat down and waited; When he finished reading the letter he sat down suddenly in an armchair near the window and gestured for me to come with him.

He said to me.

"This is a very hard thing to digest… If it weren't for the way everything is written in this letter I would doubt that it was her who wrote it. Only she and I knew what we said to each other the last time we were together and then she disappeared. I looked for her but I had no money, no resources and her parents took her away without telling me anything and without leaving any clues”

The man sighs “Now I know what she went through alone, misunderstood and loving this child she never got to know in life… Her parents locked her up, she couldn't even leave the house to have the baby, they had left home for one of their weekend trips and when they arrived they found that their daughter had bled to death holding her baby. Who, miraculously, was by her side and alive”

“They gave the baby to an orphanage, in the same town where you found her and then her parents, the Philbricks died from the grief of what they did to their only daughter. The baby she left behind was named Samantha Philbrick”

“You are the daughter of this woman, the one you found in the night, she’s the only woman I ever loved in my life… And according to what this letter says… I am your father!”

“I can't understand how she wrote this to you if she has been dead for more than 25 years… The age you must be now." Said Mr Smith

"No, it can't be, what are you telling me…? This can't be, you mean I talked to my mother and she's dead? You mean the one who I helped last night helped me to find my family instead? Wha- this… is this a dream? It can't be true!”

Mr. Peter Smith came up to me and asked me to forgive him for not finding me, for not knowing where she had gone. And he told me that he kept looking for her all the time, that he kept striving for the dream that they had and now he owned this company… Which would then be mine if I forgave him and accepted him as my father.

I could only hug him. Together we let ourselves be carried away by the moment and our tears flowed as my mother's tears flowed that same night I met her.

And this is the great surprise that life had hidden from me.