I found a photo wedged in the back of my late mom’s old album. There I was at two years old, standing beside a girl who looked exactly like me. On the back, in my mother’s handwriting: “Anna and Lily, 1978.” I’d never heard of any Lily.
Not once in my entire life. Until I knocked on my aunt’s door.
I found the photograph by accident. It slipped out from the back of an old album and landed on the floor, face down.
But the moment I turned it over, my breath caught.
There were two little girls in the photo.
One was me at two. The other looked about four, standing beside me with the same eyes, the same nose, and literally the same face.
She looked exactly like me.
My name’s Anna, and I’m 50 years old. My mother had just died at 85, and I was alone in her house, sorting through a lifetime of memories.
It had always been just the two of us.
My father died when I was very young. After his death, my mother became my anchor. She was my provider, protector, and the only adult voice in my world.
She worked hard, kept our life simple, and never spoke much about the past.
After the funeral, I returned to her house alone.
I took a week off work, leaving my husband and children at home because I knew I’d need several days to sort through everything.
I spent three days working through bedrooms and closets. Every object held a memory. And every memory reminded me how small our world had been.
Finally, I climbed up to the attic.
The ladder creaked, dust rose, and the light bulb flickered before settling.
That’s where I found the family photo albums stacked in a cardboard box.
I carried them downstairs and sat on the floor, opening one after another. Page after page of my childhood stared back at me — birthday parties, school photos, summer days I barely remembered but somehow still felt.
My eyes filled with tears more than once. Grief catches you off guard when it’s wrapped in nostalgia.
I turned another page, and a single photograph slipped out.
It hadn’t been attached. It hadn’t been meant to be seen.
I picked it up and froze. Because there were two little girls in the photo.
And only one of them was me.
I turned the photograph over and saw the date written in my mother’s handwriting: 1978.
That meant I was two years old. The girl standing next to me looked older, maybe four or five.
The story doesn’t end here — it continues on the next page.
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