When we lose someone close to us, it often feels hard to believe that they’re really gone.
In a way, it makes the pain of their passing worse because we can feel the emotional weight of their absence lift with a sudden glimmer of hope only to realize that what we’re hoping for isn’t real.
Still, even when we realize that, it can sometimes give us comfort to reach out to them like they’re still alive. This can be something we do in our own heads, or it can take the form of a more literal approach like talking to their graves or texting their former numbers.
One woman has spent the last four years doing this, but whether others believe it or not, this culminated with a surprise response from someone who needed to see her messages.
Looking back, 23-year-old Chastity Patterson recalled having a headstrong attitude and a strong sense of what she wanted.
As she wrote on Facebook, she would often visit the skating rink where a man named Jason Ligons worked and wanted to skate even when it put her at risk of having older kids run into her.
After he encountered her enough times, Ligons put her to work behind the snack bar so he could keep an eye on her. He would then pick her up and eventually introduced her to a friend as his daughter, which is genuinely how she saw their relationship be the time she was in the sixth grade.
Although she mentioned having a biological father, Ligons was there for major stages of her life and she trusted him with any sensitive information she had to share.
As she wrote , they would also share long talks about her “mouth and attitude” and she introduced all of her boyfriends to him.
With this in mind, it’s easy to understand why she would call him “dad.”
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Sadly, Ligons passed away about four years ago.
To help adjust to a new life without him, she would regularly text his number and sometimes share updates about what was going on in her life.
She wrote that most of the time, it stopped at a simple “good morning” or a message that she made it through the day.
But because she knew the fourth anniversary of his passing would be a hard day, she had more to tell him.
And indeed, the journey she’s had since she last saw him sounds like it would be a lot to catch up on.
But although she knew Ligons couldn’t read her messages, she discovered that day that somebody could.
And not only did this person appreciate her messages, but they became part of his own grieving process after losing his daughter.
Patterson wrote that Ligons didn’t know what imprint he had on her life in the early days of their relationship, but it seemed that the same is true for her when it comes to Brad.
Although most of the responses were positive and brought to mind people’s own losses, not everyone believed this exchange was real.
Based on the Facebook post from which we learned the context behind Patterson’s relationship with Ligons, this was apparently based on the fact that doubters somehow learned Ligons wasn’t her biological father and the fact that her messages delivered.
After providing the aforementioned context, she made it clear that she was aware the messages delivered and that she didn’t know Brad was receiving them, for how long, or whether that’s even his real name, but she’s glad he somehow ended up with them.
She went on to share that she sent that fourth year update because she was ready to let him rest.
And in response to the more paranoid among her commenters, she said, “NO, I WILL NOT SHARE IMAGES OF MY PERSONAL LIFE OR MY HEALTH RECORDS! YOU PEOPLE NEED BETTER THINGS TO DO.”
Hopefully, that can be enough to let her touching story exist without being treated like some shadowy conspiracy.
h/t: Facebook | Chastity Patterson