One day she was laughing with me on the shore, and the next she was gone — a sudden accident that shattered our world.

My father was never the same after that. I grew older, went to school, built a career, yet deep inside there was always an emptiness I couldn’t fill. I carried her memory everywhere – her gentle voice, her radiant smile like a shadow I could never escape.

And then, last month, something happened that changed everything. I was in Paris on a work trip, strolling through a quiet street near Montmartre when I saw her. A woman walked past, and my entire body froze.

She looked exactly like my mother. The same eyes, the same way she tucked her hair behind her ear. My heart raced as I followed her, caught between disbelief and a desperate hope I couldn’t explain.