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I posted about a week and a half back regarding my wife’s car being broken into around NE 55th in the University district. A brief recap of what happened…she had been in Seattle for about a month and a half and was set to come back cross country to NC on 4/23. She packed her car the night before and upon taking her last few items to her car, she discovered that her car’s passenger side window had been smashed. When she looked in the car she discovered several things missing…the most important was a bag that she had placed in the passenger floorboard. This bag contained the ashes of our recently departed Chihuahua, Tia, a plaster casting of Tia’s paw prints, a “cuddle clone” plushie made to look like Tia and a blanket with photos of Tia across its entirety. She called me, absolutely devastated..I couldn’t understand anything she was saying except “they took her”. In the following hours, she walked around the neighborhood looking for any signs of the bag or anything that it contained and I did all I could from 3000 miles away. A member of her family posted on several Facebook groups in the Seattle area and I took to Reddit. The response I received was overwhelming. People volunteered their time to search the neighborhood, people volunteered to put up fliers around the area and I was even contacted by a reporter with king5 news. I tried to update my original post, but I didn’t have any additional news to add and the post fell from view pretty quickly. We hadn’t heard anything from the police department, and we hadn’t received any info on our girls missing things, so by last weekend my hopes were nearly destroyed. I was climbing into bed Saturday at around 1:30am EST and as I put my phone on charge I noticed that I had a new notification. I opened the message to find an extremely long text message from a guy named Chris, who said he had been homeless in the U district area for around 7 years. He said he gets by by searching through dumpsters and that a few nights before when going through a trash bin, very near where the break in took place, he saw a stuffed animal inside a Safeway bag. As he looked through the bag he found the plushie, a wooden box with the name “Tia” on it, a set of plaster paw prints and a blanket with pictures on it. He went on to tell me that it struck him as something that didn’t belong there so he kept the items with him for two days until he happened across one of the posters of Tia that had been placed around the neighborhood. When I read the text, my first inclination was immeasurable excitement…followed immediately by skepticism. We knew the odds of finding any 1 of our precious belongings were slim…and he has all 4? I texted him asking if he could send me a picture of her things as he found them. After a few minutes I received two pictures of her ashes and her paw prints placed neatly on her blanket…and her plushie wrapped with another corner of the blanket. I completely lost it and I forwarded the texts and the photos to my wife. She then texted and called a redditor who had created and placed fliers asking for anyone who found our items to call me (no answer there). I continued speaking to Chris for about an hour…he said he has a dog and that’s why seeing those things in a dumpster really struck a chord with him. He told me that he would take good care of her until we were able to make arrangements to have our girl’s items shipped home to us. Neither of us really knew anyone in the area, but I texted the reporter whom I had spoken with regarding our story. The next morning my wife received a very excited response from the redditor asking if we wanted her to collect our things and ship them back to us. I gave her Chris’s contact info and they agreed on a time and place to meet. The day of the meeting, my wife and I were understandably on edge…30 minutes after the time, 45 minutes after and as it closed in on an hour after the agreed upon time, we both received a photo of Katie (the redditor…I asked before using her name!), her Chihuahua, our Tia’s plushie, Chris and his dog named Reo. I have permission from them both to include the photo. We’re now waiting on our girl’s cross country trip to lead her back to our door. None of the excitement, disbelief, uncontrollable happiness or tears of joy would have been possible without the kindness of complete strangers. The thing that got me the most was the second photo Chris sent me the night he reached out to me. He could have sent a photo of our things strewn about any old way…and it would have made me just as happy…but it was the way in which he placed the items and had wrapped up the plushie of our girl as if to keep her warm that absolutely destroyed me. I am making arrangements to send Chris a reward, but nothing I’ll ever be able to give him will ever do his act of kindness any justice…he replaced the irreplaceable. He gave my wife and I back our daughter, who’s 15 years brought endless happiness and joy into our lives and anyone who she met along the way. We’re far from wealthy, but we’ve also never really done without…the actions of this man, who has lived life on the fringes for the last 7 years have really put things into perspective for me. I’ve taken so much in my life for granted…and a man with so little has given me a gift that’s worth more to me than literally every single possession I have, or will ever own. Seattle, I asked for help, and you delivered on a scale that blew me away. I want to say thanks on behalf of myself and my wife for showing us that people are good and people do care ❤️❤️❤️ ~B submitted by /u/Fantastic_Novel9527 |
