Clara quietly confided in me that her husband had sadly passed away the previous year in a car accident. Since then, managing finances had been very difficult. She was working two different jobs and struggling to stay financially afloat. Mia hadn’t had a proper, celebratory birthday since her father passed.
I stayed for about an hour, chatting, laughing, and watching Mia happily pretend the cake was a dinosaur volcano. When I finally stood up to leave, Clara walked me to the door.
“You do matter,” I replied sincerely.
We exchanged phone numbers, and I drove home feeling strangely lighter, as if I had unexpectedly stumbled into something truly important and meaningful.
A New Chapter: The Handmade Business
Over the next few weeks, Clara and I stayed in touch. We met for coffee once, then again, and soon it became a regular, weekly meeting. Sometimes Mia would join us; sometimes it was just the two of us. We talked about everything: life, struggles, hopes, dreams, and the challenge of putting big dreams on hold.
I learned that Clara had once studied design in college but had stopped after Mia was born. She had always cherished a dream of opening a little shop that sold handmade crafts and custom, thoughtful gifts. But, as she said, life got in the way.
Then, one day over coffee, she looked at me with a new spark in her eyes and asked, “What if I actually did it?”
“Did what?”
“Tried again. Opened the shop. I could start small. Online.”
I saw the hopeful fire that had been buried for years finally return to her face. “Then let’s do it,” I encouraged her.Continue reading…
