Gail Anderson immediately recognized the handwriting on the letter in her mailbox – it was seven years to the day that her son, Cameron Sharp, had written himself a letter in middle school. Cameron died the year he turned 17 and his middle school teacher debated sending the letter to his mother.

“When I ran across (Cameron’s) for just a moment I paused and asked myself, ‘Do I mail this?’ But I knew that probably it would be really special to his mother,” Dale Caldwell said.

But while it was bittersweet, Gail said it helped turn dreading Mother’s Day into a beautiful memory.