She was always alone, never smiled, and people avoided her. They said she could start a fight at any moment. To us, she was the “angry neighbor” no one wanted to deal with. Last month, she passed away. The police came to my door and asked me to join them when they checked her apartment, since I’d lived in the building the longest. I hesitated, but agreed.
When I entered her flat, I froze. The place was dim, quiet, and lined with shelves. On them were dozens of boxes, neatly labeled. One box had my name on it. My hands shook as I opened it. Inside were things from my childhood—old drawings, little notes I had slipped under her door as a curious kid, even newspaper clippings from the time I won a school award. She had saved them all.
As I looked around, I saw boxes with other neighbors’ names, too. She had quietly collected small pieces of all of us—birthday flyers, community photos, even lost items she had kept safe. The woman everyone thought was bitter had actually been keeping a silent record of our lives.
Maybe she didn’t know how to connect, or maybe loneliness had closed her off, but this was her way of loving by holding onto our memories. I walked out of her apartment with tears in my eyes. We had judged her by her silence, but behind it was a heart that cared more deeply than we ever imagined.