Last week, I received a very kind message from my former co-workers at a job I left about three weeks ago. I had resigned because of a toxic manager who had been harassing me for about five months.

When I left, my colleagues didn’t say a proper goodbye, which is understandable since I was working remotely, even though I felt close to them. One colleague, the one I interacted with the most, didn’t even say goodbye! That surprised me a little😶. But I know he has been under tremendous pressure at work, and because of his situation, he couldn’t risk doing anything that might jeopardize his job. He depended heavily on it. Perhaps even saying goodbye to me felt risky for him! 😶

Anyway… last week I received a message from this colleague. To my surprise, he had sent me a gift card with a note saying they were sorry they hadn’t been able to say a proper goodbye ☺️. He wrote that they would miss me and that the gift card was from them (excluding the manager ) and suggested I use it to buy some art supplies and enjoy doing art 🥰.

It was such a beautiful surprise. It felt so heartwarming to see that humanity still exists 🥲. That some people still see each other as human beings, not just as tools.

Here is what I bought with that gift card. I received them a couple of days ago:

I bought a candle lantern I’ve wanted for a long time and some candle molds to make my own candles ☺️

I love the beautiful pattern it casts on the ceiling when the candle is lit 🙂‍↕️