The letter arrived with no return address, no postage, just my name scrawled across the front. Inside, in my own handwriting, was a single message:
On July 7, 2027, 6:32 PM, Push her!
Panic clutched my chest. Push who? Push them where? Off a ledge? Out of harm’s way?
Every day, I scanned my surroundings for threats. At work, in the grocery store, at home—I was hyperaware. Who was coming for me? Who needed saving?
The day arrived.
Nothing happened. No masked intruder. No swerving car. No damsel teetering on the edge of disaster. Instead, I was at a football stadium, watching my daughter struggle on the field. She was the only girl on the team, smaller than the boys, but she held her own—until today. Today, she was exhausted. Defeated. I saw it in the way she hung her head, in the way she dragged her feet back to the bench.
When she turned to me, her face was set in a grimace. “I can’t do this anymore, Mom.”
My heart clenched. This was what I had been waiting for. No more watching her get knocked down. No more listening to cruel whispers about how she didn’t belong. No more hours spent at practice when we could be doing something—anything—less painful.
“Okay, sweetheart,” I started. Then I remembered the letter.
Push her.
The realization hit me like a blow to the chest. I wasn’t meant to push someone away. I was meant to push her forward. I knelt in front of her, gripping her hands. “You’re stronger than this. You love this game. Don’t quit just because it’s hard.”
Her eyes filled with tears, shimmering under the bright stadium lights. For a moment, I saw the little girl who once clung to my hand, afraid of falling, afraid of failing. She blinked rapidly, swallowing hard, the war between doubt and determination playing out in the tight set of her jaw. Then, with a shaky breath, she nodded—just once, but with all the resolve in the world. She went back in.
And that was the moment everything changed.
She played harder, faster. By the time the game ended, she had scored the winning touchdown. That night, the team lifted her onto their shoulders, chanting her name. Years later, when she held up her first championship trophy, she would tell me, “That was the day I almost quit. The day you pushed me to keep going.”
And I would remember the letter. Because I had saved her after all.
