I was giving a lecture at a university in Italy when a student in the front row made me pause mid-sentence —she had the same laugh as my sister who disappeared 20 years ago. The same spark in her eyes. The resemblance was uncanny.
Brushing it off as coincidence, I continued. After class, she approached me. “You remind me of someone too,” she said, almost whispering. “My mom used to show me an old photo of her brother. You look exactly like him.”
I froze.
We sat down for coffee. I asked for her mother’s name. When she told me, my hands shook.
It was my sister’s name.
I pulled out my phone, trembling, and showed her a picture of us as kids.
Tears welled up in her eyes. “That’s her. That’s my mom.”
She wasn’t missing. She had started over — far from the pain, far from everything. And she’d told her daughter about me.
Now, her daughter had unknowingly walked right back into my life.
Fate works in mysterious ways.
