At 62, I’ve lived through heartbreak, loss, and reinvention. Life has taught me that everything—good or bad—passes. When I was younger, I believed love would carry me through. I spent years with a man who filled my days with laughter and dreams, but when marriage came up, he faltered. At 35, I walked away, left with nothing but a broken heart and a shaky future.

Starting over, I found work as a school cleaner. It wasn’t glamorous, but the children gave me purpose. They saw me not just as the janitor but as “Miss Lana,” someone who cared. I slipped cookies into lunch bags, helped with reading, and listened to their fears. One boy, Jordan, stayed closest to my heart. A foster child shuffled between homes, he’d linger after class, helping me sweep floors. “You’re perfect just the way you are,” I told him when he wondered why no one kept him. For fifteen years, those children filled my world with meaning—until budget cuts closed the school.

I took a job at the mall, where adults treated me as invisible. One day, while mopping near the food court, I collided with a man in a suit, spilling coffee on him. I braced for anger. Instead, he froze. “Miss Lana?” he whispered. It was Jordan—no longer a quiet boy but a successful man. Tears filled my eyes as he told me I had been his family when he had none.

Jordan insisted I join his family, helping with his children. Today, they call me Grandma Lana. After years of loneliness, I finally have a home filled with love, built on kindness that once seemed so small.