Grieving Daughter Finds Note In Fossil Purse While Thrifting
Unexpected Thrift Store Find
Photo of a little girl with her father and a black purse.
TikTok/Abrielle Clausing
On January 13, 2021, Abrielle Clausing's world fell apart. Her father unexpectedly passed away from Covid-19. As anyone who has experienced grief knows, the journey isn't a straight one. It ebbs and flows with some days being significantly harder than others.
It was during a "particularly hard grief week" when Abrielle, 24, decided to embark on some retail therapy. She used to love thrifting with her dad, and no one loved a good deal more than he did.
However, she didn't just want to shop for the sake of shopping, she had a very specific item she wanted in mind.
"My sister and I decided to go thrifting and I told her I wanted to find a vintage Fossil brand purse," she explains in a now-viral TikTok video.
And wouldn't you know, Abrielle did indeed end up finding "the cutest vintage Fossil brand purse" - seriously what are the chances?
And as if that wasn't serendipitous enough, it was about to get a whole lot more remarkable.
Inside the purse was a handwritten note:
"When you read this you will be far from me in miles but not in my heart. I'm here. I love you."
Whelp.
She immediately took it as a sign from her beloved dad.
"I knew it was from him," she told People. "I always check the inside of the bag before I buy it to make sure it’s in good condition. When I stuck my hand in it, I felt the piece of paper and when I took it out and found the note, I read it out loud to my sister."
"When I saw the note, it just confirmed that he was with us," she added. "He’s always with us."
Response To The Viral TikTok
TikTok · abrielleclausingAbrielle's heartwarming video has garnered nearly one million views and over 1,000 comments and it's making believers out of every single one of us.
"I'm so afraid that death is final and we just stop existing. But some things can't be explained. There has to be more out there!!"
"This was def him 🥹💙"
"I’m literally crying so hard. Someone would have had to carry me out of the thrift 😭"
"I'm honestly at a loss for words. Wow. Just wow."
Even Fossil weighed in, writing, "What a beautiful note to find. Your dad's love will always be with you. Sending you and your family a big, warm hug."
Her TikTok also opened the floodgates for others to share the signs they've received from lost loved ones.
"My brother passed away & years later I was at a checkout line in the store & at the cash register was a young school photo of him that someone left.... never made sense but I'll never forget it."
"About 30 seconds after bursting in tears thinking about my grandpa a car merged in front of me and the license plate was his name and his age when he died 😭😭"
"When my mom passed, days after I found an email that not me nor my sister had opened or read before. It was an email my mom sent us 4 years before with the message “open it when I’m gone, love, mom”. It had a beautiful letter as an attachment."
Love Lives On
The note Abrielle Clausing found in a Fossil bag while thrifting is now part of a cherished collage.
People.com/Abrielle Clausing
Abrielle has given the note a place of honor, right smack in the middle of a framed collage of her favorite sayings and things.
It's a beautiful reminder that the love she shared with her dad lives on, even though he is gone.
And whether you believe in fate or not, you have to admit the universe had an uncanny way of showing up just when she needed it to.
After all, what are the odds that a stranger penned a note with the exact words she needed to hear, placed it in the exact bag she was looking for, AND that bag ended up in the exact thrift store she was shopping in? Pretty astronomical.
And yet, here we are.
Life is full of unexpected, magical moments that often happen when we least expect it. And sometimes those moments bring us the comfort and connection we need most, reminding us that love...is never truly lost.
Get "Hangry" for Success: Why Your Lack of Ambition is Starving You
We’ve all been there, when we feel a hunger so bad we get light-headed and feel like we need to vomit. When we are this hungry, most of us turn pretty angry too. Your brain is critically dependent on glucose, which your body gets from fats, proteins, and carbs. So when it begins to run low, it treats the situation as life-threatening. Your brain begins to shout, "Feed me!"
Suddenly, you have a short fuse and have a hard time concentrating on your tasks. Everything else takes a back seat to your need for nourishment, and you become what we call “hangry" (hungry and angry). You will compromise your rules of “normal” social behavior until you get something to eat. You may be rude, snap at people, and skip people in line to get your meal faster. There will be very little that you'll let get in the way of you getting some grub.
Get "Hangry" for Success: Why Your Lack of Ambition is Starving You
Take it from the Kit-Kat thief. You can’t help but feel for this guy’s hunger pains!
“Saw Kit-Kat in your cup holder. I love Kit-Kats so I checked your door and it was unlocked. Did not take anything other than the Kit-Kat. I am sorry and hungry.”
This was a note left on the seat of a college kid’s car after someone broke in and stole his Kit-Kat. I’m pretty sure I have experienced this level of hunger before. There is nothing more disorienting and distracting than an empty stomach.
Snacking through life
When we are this hungry, you can bet we will do anything that's necessary to get what we desire. So why is it then that when we desire success in any area of life, be it money, health, wellness, or in our relationships, we settle?
Why don’t we behave like the Kit-Kat thief, and take from life what we want? What stops us from breaking all the rules to find the success we so desperately claim to seek?
Perhaps we never get to that level of hunger for success because we “snack” through life. When you get bits and pieces of satisfaction here and there, from the little accomplishments, you never develop a hunger that is strong enough to provoke massive action.
You have a “safe” job, so you never take the leap to start that business.
You have a boyfriend or girlfriend that “treats you nicely,” so you never meet that person that your soul craves.
You aren’t as fat as some of your friends, so you never take those gym sessions seriously.
You get a decent paycheck, so you never strive to bring more value than is required for payment.
You get just enough from the ordinary to temporarily keep the hunger pains away, and so you never seek the extraordinary.
The hunger pains I speak of are those pains that will drive you so angry, you will do whatever it takes to succeed. They are the pains that have propelled many of history's highest-achieving men and women to new levels of greatness.
Yet, you and I continue to be sedated with our little “snacks” of success.
Hunger leads to action, action leads to success
Hunger is the greatest motivator of action, and action is the key to success.
When you are dying of hunger, you will do whatever it takes to get yourself a meal. And if you don’t succeed, you will die trying.
If we truly want to be great, to do great things, to find success in life however it might look to each of us, we need to stop snacking and let those hunger pains push us a little harder.
We can’t keep munching on the little things while our biggest dreams draw further away.
What does “hangry” for success look like?
Being hangry for success is when you sit on the toilet with a pen and notepad writing new ideas instead of scrolling on your phone. It's reading books instead of watching TV shows. It's following thought leaders instead of celebrities, and meeting like-minded people instead of party people.
If we want to succeed, we can’t be killing our appetites. We must stay hungry. We must not settle for the little victories of life which only temporarily subdue our search for greatness.
We must want it bad enough that everything else becomes a distraction, and the lack of success becomes life-threatening.
We have to get hangry for success.
There is a better way to live!