This woman had lived on the 8th floor of my building for 50 years. She was always alone, never smiled, and barely spoke. Most neighbors avoided her. She was the type who could start a fight over elevator buttons or hallway noise.

Last month, she died.

The police knocked on my door unexpectedly, saying I should come upstairs with them. I assumed it was some mix-up—until we stepped into her flat.

I froze.

Lining every wall, in meticulous rows, were photographs—of me. Hundreds, maybe thousands. Images captured from her balcony, spanning decades: me learning to ride a bike, heading to school with a backpack twice my size, coming home late from college, walking my dog, talking on the phone, laughing, crying. My entire life was there, frame by frame.

It felt surreal. Chilling, at first. Why had she done this?

Then the officer explained: she had no living relatives. No friends. No one. But she’d kept journals—notes about how watching me grow gave her a strange sense of comfort. A borrowed sense of belonging. Photographing me became her quiet obsession, her ritual. In her loneliness, I was a connection to the world outside.

And in her will, she left me everything—her flat, her journals, and the entire photo collection.

I used to think she never smiled.

Now I realize… maybe I was the reason she did, when no one was looking.