Viral

Facebook find

Image by Eva C from Pixabay 

When thieves broke in and stole everything of value, including all of Angela’s jewelry, the only thing she cared about was the locket her grandpa had given to Gran when they were dating.

Heartbroken, she booted up her laptop—which she had taken with her for her weekend getaway—and poured her heart out to her divorcee group on Facebook after the police left. Her friends, though supportive, couldn’t bring back her treasured heirloom. Angela finally went to bed and cried herself to sleep.

 The next morning, she woke to her cellphone vibrating off her night table. She grabbed for it, barely saving it from crashing to the floor. “Hello?”

“Angie, you’ve got to see this,” her friend Lara squealed in her ear. “It’s gone viral!”

“What has?”

“Your locket. I posted a picture on my Facebook page, and it has almost half a million likes. And OMG! Someone just posted that their boyfriend gave it to them this morning, saying he had picked it up at a pawn shop. She called the cops and they arrested him.”

“You’re kidding! Does she still have it?”

“Hold on,” Lara said. “I’m answering her post now.”

Angela sat up, heart pounding. It was all she could do to not hurry her friend.

Finally, “No. The police took it.”

Angela jumped as the phone buzzed in her hand. “Lara, it’s the police. I have to go.” Her hands shook as she accepted the call.

“We have your belongings,” the officer she had spoken to the day before told her. “We have to keep most of it for evidence, but I’m outside your house with your locket.”

“Thank you,” Angela said through a throat tight with gratitude and unshed tears. After the officer left, she put on the locket. Because of her friend’s Facebook post, the honesty of the thief’s girlfriend, and the compassion of this officer, her only remaining link to her grandparents lay safely around her neck. She vowed never to take it off again.

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I’m not a big fan of Facebook, but sometimes good things do happen there. This story was inspired by the image.