My Grandmother’s Legacy: The Angel in Disguise

“You don’t know, do you?” she asked softly.

I shook my head, confused.

Then she told me something I will never forget.

Your grandmother was one of our “Silent Angels,” she said.

Over the last several years, my grandmother had been quietly purchasing gift cards from that very store — sometimes $20, sometimes $50, occasionally more — and leaving them with store employees with simple instructions: Give this to someone who needs it. But don’t tell them who it’s from.

She never wanted credit. Never signed her name. She’d quietly slip the card to a cashier or customer service worker, point to a mother struggling to count change, or a tired-looking man at the checkout, and say, “Please — just make sure they get this.”

She came in regularly, always modestly dressed, always polite, always a bit mysterious. They called her The Angel in Disguise.

And the card I held — the one I had planned to regift or toss — was the last one she ever bought.

A Changed Heart