A young woman gets a chance to meet her supposedly dead husband after taking a job as a housekeeper in the home of a rich old lady.
“This is Carl Jung’s mailbox, I can’t answer right now, but please try again later.”
It was the fifth time that Gloria Jung had called her husband, who worked at a logistics company. He had left in a hurry that morning after being called for a sudden delivery.
Gloria began to worry when her husband didn’t come home.
“I’m your wife!”, she finally sobbed.
She told Carl what had happened and the story shocked him. He tried to grasp everything and noticed Gloria’s earrings; it was a pair he had given her for an anniversary.
“Gloria…”, he muttered as he remembered her name and the word triggered a whole wave of memories.
On the day of the accident, he had picked up a stranger hitchhiker. They had talked when a drunk truck driver came off the opposite lane and caused chaos on their side of the freeway.
Carl couldn’t avoid it and his car was totaled. He remembered how he had crawled out of the car after the accident and discovered the body of the stranger in the passenger seat. Then he passed out and Judith found him.
Gloria sneaked into the building.
“You must have buried the stranger in my place”, he sadly realized, “if I hadn’t picked him up, he would still be alive.”
“It’s not your fault, darling”, said Gloria.
Then Judith suddenly returned. Before she could say anything, Carl announced the good news to her: “Mom, I found my wife!”
Gloria wanted to tell Carl that Judith was not his mother, but she changed her mind when she saw the tears in Judith’s eyes. Since Carl had originally been an orphan, she played along.
It took a few weeks before Carl’s memory fully returned and he remembered that his mother had died decades ago. But by then the bond between him, his wife, and Judith had already been established.
They and Carl visited the old lady regularly and took care of her. When Judith died, she left them her villa.
Gloria was overjoyed to be back with her husband.
What can we learn from this story?
Grief is no excuse. Gloria lost her husband who had provided for her, so she no longer had a source of income. To survive, she used her savings while planning his funeral and mourning him. When the time came to look for work, she managed to pull herself together and leave the house instead of sitting inside and crying, even though it had only been months since she had lost Carl.
Do not repay evil with evil. Judith had fired Gloria to keep her secret, but in the end it came out. After that, Gloria could have revealed that Judith was not Carl’s real mother, but that would have caused pain to both sides. So she kept it to herself and in the end they were rewarded by the old lady.
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