A Little Surprise

I was sitting by the window on the little ledge he built for me, looking at the rain pour matching the tears pouring from my eyes.

He’s gone I thought to myself, he’s really gone this time.

We’ve had a couple of scares over the last year but he always ended up coming home from the hospital with me, this time – his body came home with me, not his soul.

Adrian, his name was Adrian, he was a successful mechanical engineering student that was perusing his dream job and his master’s degree. He was, unfortunately, constantly fighting a battle with his failing liver, Budd-Chiari syndrome. This man was one of a kind, in every way, from his kindness, to his heart and his disease. He was fortunate enough to get a liver transplant earlier this year but his liver was too far gone and the major veins were too damaged to be fixed. We both knew it was a matter of time, but I was praying for a little longer.

Today after dropping scarlet to school, our 9-year-old daughter, I decided to clean the house. I cleaned and organized scarlet’s room, for a child, this girl has a lot of stuff in her room.

By the time I was done organizer her room and cooking dinner, it was time to go pick her up from school. I was bracing myself to be bombarded with questions and sadness from all our friends from school since I’m sure scarlet mentioned the news to all of them.

Pulling up to the school, I can see my vision coming to life with all the parents standing around scarlet, some with tears in their eyes, others looking at me with so much sadness in their eyes.

“How’re you Mia? ““Do you need anything Mia?” “Is there anything we can do for you Mia?”

“Mia... Mia... Mia... Mia...”

I smiled and told them everything is okay, that life goes on, and we will go through this one way or another.

Later that night, Scarlet came into my room holding a little black book that I haven’t seen before, even though I just cleaned her room. “Mommy, I have something for you”

I just assumed that it’s something she got from school, she put it on my bed and ran out.

I carried it and went after her, “Scarlet baby, what is this?”

“It’s for you mommy, I’m not supposed to say anything more than that, I promised.”

“Promised who baby?”

“MOMMY I CAN’T SAY STOP ASKING ME QUESTIONS” she says with a giggle.

After tucking her in and making sure she fell asleep, I walked back to my bed and bundled up to fall asleep, completely forgetting about that little black book.

I woke up in the middle of the night, like I have been since his passing. The first thing I saw was the little book on my night stand, and that is when the curiosity hit me.

I opened it and instantly started crying

“Hey baby, if you’re reading this that means what we most feared happened and I’m sorry”

This sentence on its own ripped my heart out its place, but I decided to keep reading because this is the closest I will be with him.

“I started writing this journal on the second failure scare because I didn’t know how much longer I had and I have something that you need to know about if anything ever happens to me.

I gave this to scarlet and told her to hide it from you until something happens.

I love you baby, you were the light of my days, the person that helped me stand up every time I fell

and you know better than anyone how many times I fell. I am so sorry it had to end this way, I wish there was something I could have done or said to make this any easier on you.

The one thing I can say is that you made all my pain go away, even on the nights it was unbearable, having you by my side, made it tolerable.

Now to the little secret,

I invested in a couple of companies in the stock market, and created a bank account linked to it with your name,

I know you constantly told me that we were well off, but baby I wanted to give you the world. The only way I can think of was investing in a stock and gifting you the account, and you’re smart enough to know when to pull the money.

I put a sum of GameStop, Amazon, and Apple.

Did I know what I was doing? No. it was a shot in the dark, I asked a lot of people and these three seemed like the safest bet.”

In that second, I felt my heart stop.

I re-read the list of stocks over, and over and over again.

GameStop.

I had just read in the news before sleeping about GameStop booming, I quickly got my phone, looked for the login information for the bank account in the little book, and signed in.

50, 000 Canadian Dollars (81.50%)

I wanted to panic, scream, cry, run and faint at the same time.

The first thing I did was make sure if the trend is still going up, but I noticed its dropping, I contacted the bank and withdrew the GameStop money in that same second,

and within the minute, my balance went up Fifty. Thousand. Dollars.

I continued reading the book, crying of happiness and sadness at the man that I deeply love,

Even without his physical presence, he protects us and takes care of us.

How did I get so lucky.