Visiting Late Wife’s Grave, Man Sees His Dog Digging Ground & Decides to Check It Out — Story of the Day

While visiting his late wife's grave, a man finds his pet dog digging the ground near someone's headstone. He checks the spot and makes a mysterious discovery beneath the soil.

"Rusty, wait! Rusty, come here!" Johnny ran after his dog, whistling. He had gone to the cemetery to visit his late wife Evy's grave to commemorate her 5th death anniversary. Evy's passing felt like it happened yesterday and still haunted Johnny.

"Had I not asked you to run to the store that day...." he often blamed himself for her death. Evy had died in a car crash on her way to the store, and Johnny still could not shake his thoughts off the tragic loss of his wife.

He placed Evy's favorite flowers on her tomb and mourned silently. He then looked around and saw his dog was missing. Rusty usually curled up near the grave until he finished mourning, but that day, something beneath a headstone had drawn the dog's attention...

Johnny searched for Rusty and heard a strange noise several yards away. It was Rusty, and he was impatiently digging up a spot near a headstone.

"Rusty...stop! Rusty...what are you doing??" Johnny ran to the place where his dog had dug a mound of earth.

"Rusty, back off...come here." Johnny leashed Rusty and moved closer to inspect what the dog had done.

Even a small gesture of kindness reaches a wound that only compassion can heal.

"What is that?" he wondered after seeing a shiny metal object. He took a stick and dug the thing out. It was a metallic box with a small lock. Johnny lifted the box and shook it near his ear. The heavy box emanated a sound.

"What is inside this thing?" Johnny wondered.

He took a small stone and broke the lock. He opened the box and found it stashed with diamond and gold jewelry. Johnny could not believe his eyes and wondered why someone would leave their expensive jewelry in the cemetery. Beneath the jewels lay a small old diary that caught his attention next.

Johnny took the diary and began reading, only to realize the items belonged to a certain Grace.

"Who is this Grace, and why did she bury her jewels here?"

Johnny flipped the diary and found that most initial pages were torn away. There were still a few pages left, so he began reading...

"My daughter promised to care for me after my husband Thatcher died. I believed her and moved in with her to her house," were the first few lines. Johnny dropped to his knees and continued reading.

"The first few months were perfect. I didn't have any doubts. But when I told her about my intention to move back into my house, she told me that she had sold it. I was shocked. I remember my daughter asking me to sign some papers for my pension. I already had bad eyesight, so I blindly believed her and signed. I had no idea those were my house documents."

Grace's daughter, Maria, had taken all her pension and sold her house. She promised to take care of her mother, but when Grace found out what she'd done, Maria decided to leave her mother in a nursing home.

"My daughter took everything away from me, and these jewels are the only possession I have dear to my heart. These belonged to my late grandmother. I didn't want Maria to have them, so I buried them near my husband's tomb. I'll come to take them back soon."

Johnny saw that the date on the diary's last page was three years ago. He wondered what might have happened to Grace and why she hadn't come to take her jewels. He searched for the nursing home's address in the diary, but it was not there.

"How will I find her?" he was puzzled when suddenly, he looked up at the tombstone in front of him. It read Thatcher Williams. "Her husband's name was Thatcher? Is her name Grace Williams then? I'm coming for you, Grace Williams!"

A few days later, a caretaker at the nursing home walked over to Grace, 89, and told her she had a visitor.

"Someone's come for me??" Grace was alarmed.

"Yes, he said he knows you."

Grace had assumed her daughter had come, but when she learned it was a man, she was confused and curious to find out.

A few minutes later, Johnny entered Grace's room, tears clouding his eyes as soon as he saw her.

"Mrs. Grace Williams?!" he called out loud.

Grace turned around, and tears flooded her eyes when she saw the metal box in Johnny's hands. She recognized it immediately.

"How did you...how did you find this? Who are you?" she cried.

Johnny told her about finding the box near the late Thatcher's grave during his last visit to his wife's tomb a week earlier.

"Thanks to my dog! And I didn't know how to find you until I saw your late husband's name on his tomb. I guessed you could be 'Grace Williams' and I visited every nursing home in town, looking for you...and I'm glad I finally found you here!"

Grace grabbed Johnny's arms and cried. "Thank you so much, son...You have no idea what you did! These jewels belonged to my grandma, and I was trying to save them from my greedy daughter."

"I know, Mrs. Williams...I read your diary!"

Johnny returned the box of jewels to Grace and promised to come for her soon. A few days later, he returned with the necessary paperwork to take Grace home with him.

She was delighted to move in with Johnny but was stopped by her daughter, Maria.

Maria was constantly in communication with a worker in the nursing home to make sure her mother would never leave and to update her on any visitors and her mother's well-being. She had learned from that worker that someone had come for her mother.

"You cannot take my mother from here. I put her here, and she stays right where I want," Maria fumed at Johnny.

But to Maria's shock, Grace stood her ground against her and defended the kind man.

"It's my wish to live with whoever I want! You failed me as my daughter, so God sent me a son! I might not have given birth to him, but he knows how to respect and love a mother!"

So Grace moved in with Johnny while Maria was forced to accept defeat, with no clue about the jewelry Grace had successfully hidden from her.

What can we learn from this story?

• Even a small gesture of kindness reaches a wound that only compassion can heal. When Johnny found Grace's buried jewels and her diary, he embarked on a mission to find her and return them. His thoughtfulness and kindness restored Grace's faith in love.
• Greed makes a man blind, heartless, and easy prey for disappointment and failure. Maria swindled her mother's pension and even sold her house. She then abandoned her mother in a nursing home, thus losing her mother's love due to her greed for money.

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