Grandpa and I were close. His will offered my siblings and me $10,000 or a photo album. They chose cash; I picked the album, a piece of him. Behind a photo of us, I found a hidden envelope with a letter in his cursive: “You chose memory over money.” It revealed a secret: in 1974, Grandpa buried a box under the oak tree in his sold-off backyard, containing something precious.
I drove to the house, now owned by a kind couple who let me dig. Under the oak, I found a rusted box with a wallet, a 1974 newspaper clipping about a mechanic, David Moreno, killed in a fire, three gold coins, and a notebook. Grandpa confessed he stole the coins from David during a desperate time, accidentally causing the fire that killed him. He never used the coins, guilt-ridden.
Shocked, I researched David, learning he was unclaimed, buried without a marker. The coins were worth $45,000. I bought David a headstone and published his story, sparking memories from others. A man, Luis, believed David was his father. I gave him the wallet, and we donated half the coins’ value to a mechanics scholarship, the rest to Luis’s home.
Grandpa’s mistake didn’t define him. Choosing the album gave me his truth, David’s justice, and redemption. Some burdens, when set down, rewrite endings.