• Courtney Ellis is a 42-year-old mom of three in Mission Viejo, California.
• She found a used train set online and agreed to buy a quarter of the set.
• When she went to collect the set, the seller gave her the entire set for no extra cost.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Courtney Ellis, author of Looking Up. It has been edited for length and clarity.

Ten years ago, my husband and I moved with our 2-year-old son from Wisconsin to California to work at a church. My husband was finishing a Ph.D., and our only source of income was a pastoral position at the church, which we split between the two of us.

We were eating through our savings just to make ends meet, living in a tiny condo, and hoping that in time, we'd both be able to take on more hours at the church.

Our first Christmas in California, I wanted to make our son's Christmas special despite the stress of money and budgeting. Retrospectively, I can now see he would have been just as happy with a cardboard box, but at the time, as his mom, I wanted to be able to give him the world.

I couldn't afford the train set

I'd recently found a train table at a garage sale for $5. Whoever had it previously had colored all over it with crayons, hence the price.

Knowing I needed trains to accompany the table, I looked online and found a beautiful Thomas the Tank Engine set just a mile away. It had all the character trains and accessories. When I saw the price, I knew I couldn't afford the full set, so I asked the seller if I could just buy a quarter of it. I knew she might say no — that she might want to sell it as a package — but I asked, and she agreed.

She asked what part of the set I wanted, and I requested enough tracks to make a circle and a few trains.

I was completely thrilled that we would be able to give him a gift I knew he would love on Christmas morning.

When my son fell asleep, I left him with my husband, and I drove my 20-year-old car a mile to get the train set, expecting I might arrive at a huge house. But I arrived at a small condo, much like my own. I assumed she was probably selling this train track to pay for her own kids' Christmas presents.

When she opened the door, she held out a clear Ziploc bag of train tracks and trains. I thanked her and explained that we had just moved to the area. I was so thankful she was willing to sell me just a portion of the track — it was exactly what I had been looking for.

She gave me the entire train set

In that moment, we connected as frazzled, busy moms.

I got out the money to pay her, and she told me to wait, leaving me waiting at the front door with my money and train set in hand. I thought maybe she had forgotten one of the pieces.

She came back with three more bags of train sets. I was afraid there was a misunderstanding but I didn't want to say that I couldn't afford the rest of the set.

"Oh, I think we had just agreed on the one part of the set," I told her.

"I know," she responded. "Merry Christmas."

She handed me the bags, took my money, and closed the door behind her, leaving me on the front steps, trying to compose myself after experiencing such unexpected kindness.

I still cry thinking about that moment

I still tear up thinking about that moment. We were so financially strapped and really stressed about our budget, and she treated me with tenderness. It was life-changing, in a small way, and has stayed with me all these years later.

Recently, one of my sons told me a neighbor boy really liked these big trucks we have.

"I think I'm ready to say goodbye to my big trucks," he told me. "Can we take them over to the neighbor's house?"

Maybe at one time, I would have thought I could have gotten money for the trucks, but then I think back to how that woman gave me that extra train track. Since then, we have always tried to give as we have been given to, to pass on the gift of generosity, even in small ways. We decided to give as we have been given.

When I wrote about the train tracks on Threads, so many people commented about their own personal experiences of kindness. When we perform acts of generosity or share about how someone has been generous to us, I think it helps us and others begin to develop eyes to look for all the light around us in the middle of what can feel like darkness.

• Katharine Horgan is a 30-year-old who recently lost her mother's locket on her way to work.
• The locket had been given to her by her mom, who died when Katharine was 7.
• After retracing her steps in London, Katharine found her mom's locket.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Katharine Horgan. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I was nearly at my office in London when I looked down and couldn't see the locket I had been wearing around my neck.

I panicked, lifting up my top in the middle of the street, thinking it had dropped into my bra. Tears were running down my face as I saw people looking at me, wondering what was going on.

It wasn't just any locket that I'd lost. My mom, who died of cancer when I was 7, had left the locket for me.

She left me beautiful memories

Mom was diagnosed with cancer when I was 18 months old. They gave her five years to live.

For the years she had left, she made beautiful memories with me. I remember getting my ears pierced when I was 5. It was one of the few girly things she'd be able to do with me. She knew she would miss me starting my period and all the other things that come with becoming a woman. She got some slack for it from my aunties, with them saying I was too young to have my ears pierced. But it was purposeful — she knew she wanted me to remember doing it with her.

She'd written cards for me to be delivered on each birthday until I turned 21. There was a memory box for me too, with a special message from her.

During her time at home, while I was in school, she'd work on tapestries and paintings that she'd later pass on to me.

Without my knowing, she'd curated a jewelry box for me to be given to me by my dad when I was 18. Some of the jewelry had labels. There was a ring that was clearly never worn, which she said was an anniversary gift from Dad that she hadn't had the chance to wear, and she hoped I was able to wear it.

The locket was among the jewelry. It wasn't labeled, and I don't know where she got it. But it has been precious to me since I had it.

I feel connected to her

She imprinted herself on me so strongly that there has never been a single day that I haven't tangibly had a mother. Even though she's not been alive for 23 years, I still feel her with me because of the way she so strategically left parts of her with me.

I've chosen to live in London, where I can walk along streets her feet have touched. The cards, the jewelry, the memory box, the art — all of it makes me feel connected to Mom, even though she isn't here.

And then I lost her locket. Inside the locket, there were chocolate wrappers she'd crunched up, not photos of her beloved family, which makes me laugh. She had once touched and worn that locket, and the thought of not having it at that moment when I realized it was gone was incredibly upsetting.

The idea of losing more of her when I had already lost her was incredibly upsetting.

I retraced my steps in hopes of finding it

While I was walking to work, I remember hearing something "clink" on the ground. It sounded like a bottle cap, but perhaps it was the locket?

Even though I was nearly at work, I decided to retrace my steps. I asked a friend to meet me to help me look for it, and I posted a message on social media, hoping someone would find it and return it to me.

As I walked, I glared at the ground, desperately looking for it. My friend and I couldn't find it on the ground anywhere.

I thought I would go to a café near where I had heard that clinking sound. I asked one of the guys working if someone had handed a locket in. He said no. But then another guy who worked there came in. When we asked him if he had seen it, he pulled it out of his pocket and said something had been handed in.

It was my locket. My mom's locket.

I burst into tears and completely freaked the two workers out. I just kept telling them, "Thank you!"

The whole thing reminded me that there are nice people around, people who want to do the right thing.

I've bought a new chain for the locket now and will keep it close to me forever, especially after this incident.

I don't have her yearly cards anymore, but putting on her locket and spraying my neck with her perfume grounds me, reminds me of her, and connects me to her.

• Jack Sheard is a 46-year-old empty nester in Grand Island, Nebraska.
• When the kids were young, he and his wife worked up to five jobs to support their family.
• Once the kids moved out, the couple enjoyed the freedom of an empty nester.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Jack Sheard. It has been edited for length and clarity.

My now-wife and I started dating toward the end of my senior year in college. She had just turned 21, and I was just shy of 22. After graduation, I got an internship in a different town. We would travel back and forth to see each other.

On one visit, I asked her if she could be pregnant — she had a lot of the symptoms. The next day, she went for a pregnancy test, and it was positive.

Even though it was three months into the relationship, we knew we wanted to be together and have a family.

We got married quickly and had more kids

In order for her and the baby to be covered by my work insurance, we needed to get married, which we did while she was still pregnant. We then moved to Indiana for my first job.

Both of us knew we wanted to have our kids close together, hopeful that one day they would be close friends. So, 20 months after our first was born, our second came along.

During those early years, we hustled to pay for our necessities. At one time between us, we were working five jobs to put food on the table. Both our parents lived too far away to help.

I remember being distracted and very tired. The downside of having kids when you're that young is that you aren't financially stable, so you don't have lots of headspace to play and explore because you're thinking about how to provide for your family.

We didn't know how to parent

None of our close friends had young kids. There was no one to get advice from or bounce ideas off because no one had done it before. We often didn't know what we were doing.

One of my biggest regrets is not letting my kids fail. I wanted to protect them from failure so much that I would give them Lego kits but build them myself. Even though I regret that part of my parenting, I also had no one to suggest there was another way.

Pixar movies and video games were often on, just so my wife and I could catch our breath.

As the kids grew into teenagers, our parenting changed, but it remained hands-on. My wife and I were really involved in whatever activities they took on, and we were constant taxi drivers taking them where they needed to go.

We became young empty nesters

My eldest entered the military in 2019, my youngest went to college a few years after.

Before my youngest moved out, people asked me if I was scared to be an empty nester. Maybe the right answer would have included talking about how sad I was going to be, but actually, my wife and I were looking forward to it.

We had only been together a little over a year before becoming parents. There was so much that we were looking forward to doing without the daily responsibilities that come with parenting children.

My wife was looking forward to training for ultra marathons, and I couldn't wait to play golf. We were excited to finally get the chance to travel together, but we also loved the idea of chilling, of doing absolutely nothing but relaxing.

Our youngest moved back with us for a bit

After about a year of being just the two of us, my youngest son moved back home for over a year. I had to remember to close the doors and get dressed again.

When he moved back in, we didn't revert to the parents we were when he was a child. He was independent, living in the basement and paying rent. While we told him he could always live with us when he needed to, we also told him he needed to have a plan to move out. We were hospitable, but not overly hospitable because we want both our kids to make their own way in the world.

Even though I tried to protect them from failure as children, I've backed off a lot as they have become adults. I think they're better off without constant guidance from a parent. They know that if they fail, we're here to help and support them. It takes the fear out of failure, I think.

Somehow, my wife and I made it all work. We raised pretty good humans. After all our hustling at such a young age, we're now just enjoying life. We have a nice house in a nice neighborhood, with a nice car. We have nice things and go on nice trips.

The greatest thing about being an empty nester in your 40s is that we're not even retired, and we're already enjoying life. We put in our time, and now we have so many options of how to spend our time, free from the responsibility of raising little kids.

• Olivia Rubin is a 43-year-old fashion designer who created her own rainbow-inspired brand in 2017.
• In 2014, she purposefully dressed in black to blend when she was struggling with postpartum anxiety.
• A rainbow skirt she designed in 2017 was the start of her personal and business reawakening.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Olivia Rubin. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I've been in fashion for more than 20 years. After studying for a Bachelor's in fashion print at Central St Martin's, I worked in the industry without a break until 2012, when I found out I was pregnant with my first child.

I felt run down and burnt out, so it was a good time to wind down.

After the birth of my daughter in 2014, I felt depressed, anxious, and alienated. At this time, postpartum depression wasn't something talked about, so I hadn't known to expect it and didn't understand that it was happening to me. I didn't verbalize this to anyone because I didn't know it was a thing.

It even affected the way I dressed for years.

I wanted to blend in

For as long as I can remember, I always loved wearing lots of color. But those post-baby months and years were full of black. The decision to dress in the dark color wasn't because I was too tired to decide what to wear. It was a purposeful decision that reflected my inner anxiety at the time.

All I wanted to do was blend in. Black was a way to blend in.

In 2015, a year after my daughter was born, I was still wearing black, but there was this one outfit I wore — I dressed up the black with brilliant red lipstick and red boots. It was the start of me starting to feel like me again.

A year later, I gave birth to my second daughter, but I also picked up a freelance contract for a high street company. Working again felt right. I've always been the kind of person who needs something besides just family life, and I feel like this was it. My oldest was in p,reschool and I just worked around the baby. For the first time in years, I also wanted to make clothes for myself. I made a skirt, a gray printed skirt, and was so proud of myself.

I couldn't find anything I liked, so I made my own

I continued making my own clothes, for my own personal use, in 2017. I wanted to add some color back in, after years of black. I went shopping to find something that caught my eye, and I couldn't find what I was looking for. I wanted a piece no one else had, something unusual.

I found a printing company in the UK to print my surface design onto wool and found a seamstress close by to make the skirt I had designed. It was unique, and I loved it. It was a rainbow skirt.

When I posted it on Instagram, my feed absolutely blew up. The skirt went viral, and so many people wanted it. It was a huge turning point and the start of my own brand.

I had never intended to have my own brand — I just wanted to make clothes that made me feel good. But a brand is what it all became.

I started wearing color again

After that rainbow skirt, I found myself again. I started wearing color again and helping others do the same.

I was contacted by shops that wanted to sell my clothes to their customers, and I was traveling all around the world showing my collections. It happened in the blink of an eye.

It just kept snowballing. I was making a million pounds at one point.

Everything I created, I wore. It was all bright or pastels, inspired by the rainbow.

During the pandemic, I created a loungewear collection. By day, I was homeschooling my two girls, and in every spare moment, I was packaging for customers.

I enjoyed growing my business during this time and connecting with my community on social media, but I remember it being a lot to handle.

I'm focused on sustainability

At the end of 2023, I decided to start slowing everything down. I had recently turned 40 and didn't want to be traveling all the time, leaving my kids behind. I didn't want to be rushing around constantly, without any time to just enjoy designing without a deadline.

Since then, I've been thinking more about sustainability — no one needs this much retail. I've stopped my big collections, and I'm not producing hundreds of wasted samples and production that contribute to landfills.

In hindsight, I know I wasn't happy during my black clothing phase, but I wouldn't change it. It was a part of my journey. If I hadn't been through it, I might not have had the idea to create a rainbow skirt, and none of this would have ever happened.

• Tamesha Morris's dad told her he had AIDS in October 1989, when she was 11.
• She and her older sister cared for their dad every day after school for nearly two months.
• She wishes a stable and trustworthy family member or friend had stepped in to help.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Tamesha Morris. It has been edited for length and clarity.

In 1983, my dad got full custody of me and my sister. It was just the three of us — we never saw our mom after the divorce.

I loved my dad so much. He was funny and loved to sing. My sister and I used to pretend we were his backup singers. His favorite colors were gray, black, and white. He wore a lot of matching shirts and short outfits. He could cook — he kept a bulletin board in the kitchen that outlined the meals we'd have each day.

In 1989, he chose Colorado to retire and the three of us settled in a spacious home in the suburbs. I was the first to notice the big container on the counter filled with different colored pills. Dad would get up every day and take a mountain of those pills. One day, I cornered him and asked if he was sick, and he said he would tell us when the time was right.

On October 31, 1989, he sat us down and told us he had AIDS. He said he got it while stationed in Germany shooting heroin with a buddy.

He was dying and had taken the necessary steps to protect us. We would inherit his entire estate, plus individual trust funds, the house, car, stocks, and Army and Social Security benefits. We just wouldn't have him. He apologized for having to leave us.

His health deteriorated quickly

I was really confused, and I didn't understand what AIDS was, nor did I realize the impact his death would have on my life.

After he told us, his health went downhill fast. It was almost as if he lost the will to live like he was waiting to tell us so that he could die. He lost 50 pounds, his memory, and the ability to feed and bathe himself.

A younger sister of his came to live with us with the intention of taking care of him, my sister, and myself. Although she sat with him while we were in school, the moment we arrived home, she was out the door, leaving my sister and me as his sole caregivers. I remember changing his diapers, bathing, and feeding him. But mostly, I remember sitting with him and keeping him company.

We would occasionally overhear my dad and aunt arguing. He was saying we shouldn't be taking care of him — that she should be doing that or that they should hire someone to come in. But he didn't have any power at that point.

He was taken to the hospital on Christmas Day

The weeks between him telling us he had AIDS and his death were a bit of a blur. I can't remember a lot of details, but I remember two moments vividly.

Dad would always hold a towel up to his private area as we bathed him, and one evening, as we did so, it fell. I'll never forget the defeated, soul-crushing look on his face. He was horrified despite me and my sister quickly looking away.

The last time I saw my dad was on Christmas Day, 1989. We opened our gifts — hundreds of them, as he happily watched. Later that evening, he lapsed into a coma. We called 911, who dispatched an ambulance, and after they loaded him onto the stretcher, they bent down and washed their hands in the snow — as if to "remove" the AIDS. I am still haunted by it.

I never saw my dad again after that day. He died December 27^th, one day before his 34^th birthday.

My aunt must have told my school because, upon my return, I was presented with a life-size sympathy card that the entire school had signed.

The immediate years after my father's death were terrible. The money he'd worked so hard for was mismanaged. By 17, I was flat broke, the house was foreclosed on, and the stocks were sold. Since then, there have been times I've been hungry, homeless, and hopeless.

I can't think of anything that would have made those years after my dad's death more tolerable. He was the only parent I knew, and he was suddenly gone. Nothing would have softened that blow, but maybe if there had been a safe adult to care for my sister and me, things would have turned out differently.

When I shared my story on social media, I was struck by how many other people have also experienced the loss of a parent due to AIDS. For the first time, I've found a community of people who know exactly what it was like.

• Kelly Andrews-Denney is a 44-year-old mother near Portland, Oregon.
• She taught high school math for 17 years and loved her job until 2020.
• In 2024, she started working at Costco, and her husband says she looks "lighter" coming home.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Kelly Andrews-Denney. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I started working as a high school math teacher in 2007. It was an urban school in Portland with a lot of lower-income kids, and I absolutely loved it.

Those early years weren't without hard times. The day before I started, a student in the school died by suicide. In the first seven years I worked there, we lost at least one student every year, and several of them were suicides.

It wasn't easy, but I felt resilient. I could cope with the emotions, and I managed the heavy workload. Eventually, it was too much and I decided to leave my job at the school and go work at Costco instead.

Things changed when I became a mom

When I started having my own kids in 2013, that began changing. I noticed how much the job took out of me, but I still loved it and looked forward to work each day.

I remember always thinking that if a teacher doesn't want to teach, they shouldn't — it does too much damage to the students. However, I still wanted to teach.

But in 2020, when the pandemic hit, my love for teaching dwindled.

I taught my students over a screen. Kids rarely put their video on, so my lessons were taught to a blank screen. It was difficult to maintain enthusiasm for this kind of teaching.

In the spring of 2020, a few months after we went online, I started getting migraines. I felt really dizzy and couldn't walk normally. My doctor did a lot of testing but couldn't find anything wrong and said the headaches were vestibular migraines. At first, they didn't happen often, but when they did, I'd be out of action for up to four days.

The following spring, in 2021, a student I used to teach, who I'd kept up with after he graduated, was shot and killed. The impact that had on me was immense.

My physical issues would go away over the summer break

Around this time, I started taking an antidepressant — both to help with my depression and also to manage the migraines. I also started using an herbal supplement any time I felt a headache coming on. Both of these seemed to help the migraines but didn't make them go away.

Once summer break started, I didn't get any headaches.

When we all got back in the classroom during the 2021/2022 school year, there was a lot of adjusting. The kids were different. They were unsocialized. Many of them didn't have access to resources during the year we were online. A lot of them were taking care of family members. And loads of them were traumatized and scared.

But teachers were traumatized, too. We were instructed to focus on the social and emotional well-being of the kids as if we were trained counselors. But we weren't trained to do that job, and many of us needed help ourselves after the pandemic.

That first year back, I didn't have many behavioral issues in the class — just kids with low energy levels, fear about getting COVID-19, and poor socialization.

But the next school year — the 2022/2023 school year — I had a class of ninth graders with the most challenging behavioral problems I'd ever had in a class. This class hadn't been in a normal classroom for an entire school year since the fifth grade.

Prior to this, I'd been given difficult classes on purpose. The administration knew I could handle them, but I couldn't deal with this class.

I resigned in 2024

I remember coming home without one ounce of emotional or physical energy for my own children.

I decided to go part-time for the 2023/2024 school year. Even though this relieved some pressure, I had checked out. I wasn't enjoying work, and I knew I couldn't carry on teaching if I didn't love it. It wasn't fair to the kids.

I resigned, committing to work until September 30^th, 2024.

My plan was to substitute teach while I looked for another job with a comparable salary, but I couldn't find anything.

I decided to apply at Costco and got a job stocking shelves on the early shift, starting around 4 a.m. Initially, I questioned my decision as I was taking a huge pay cut. My hourly pay was a third of what I was making as a teacher.

Equally, I was looking forward to working a job and then leaving it at work — not taking anything home with me.

I started in October. It's been so much less stressful than working as a teacher. My physical body is exhausted after every shift — it's a lot of manual labor — but I feel total relief in not having to make a thousand decisions each day, not being responsible for the academic and emotional well-being of up to 180 teens, and not carrying their trauma home with me.

After one recent shift, my husband told me I looked different. He said I looked lighter. I agree, I feel it.

I may return to teaching one day once I have had a chance to heal, but not for now.

• Natalia Buia is a 36-year-old publicist in Toronto who has never wanted to have kids.
• When she was in her 20s, being childfree didn't have a big impact on dating.
• She finds dating apps are irritating as a woman who doesn't want children.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Natalia Buia. It has been edited for length and clarity.

From childhood, I recall not wanting to have children. I never had that desire to be pregnant, or a maternal instinct to take care of children. It just never appealed to me.

Growing up as an only child could have contributed to this. Although my parents loved me and we had a good relationship, we weren't the kind of family you'd see in movies. I suppose it showed me that family isn't a one-size-fits-all. I didn't need to have the "traditional" family set up to be happy.

I also learned to enjoy my own company as a child, which would follow me into adulthood. I'm perfectly content being alone for a lot of the time, and didn't feel I needed children to complete me.

Dating in my 20s and 30s is different

As I headed into my mid to late 20s, girlfriends started to settle down and have kids. This was a hard time for me. We used to go out late at night for food, drinks, and dancing, thinking we'd be best friends forever. But then they all started having children and moving into the suburbs. Their days became birthday parties and sports games.

I started to realize my friendships just weren't going to look the same as they always had.

Dating in my 20s was so much fun. I found that the men I dated weren't desperate to have kids yet. Even then, if I was considering dating someone exclusively, I would ask early on if he wanted kids. If he did, I usually got out of the way as soon as possible. It wouldn't be fair on either of us to continue if we wanted different things. In my 20s, men weren't sure about kids anyway so dating was pretty straightforward and easy.

In my 30s, dating looked different. I hit the age that men were looking to have children, so this limited my pool of people to date. In Toronto especially, I feel like men in their 30s are looking to settle down with a family. Or they already have kids from previous relationships. At times, it can feel discouraging when I consider how few options I have.

However, because I don't want kids, there isn't the same pressure to quickly find someone because I don't have this "body clock" deadline running.

I wish dating apps would let me filter people who do want kids

I also started using dating apps regularly. I'm on several apps but like Hinge the most. There is this world of men on these apps, but I have to be careful about who I start to talk to because lots of them do want children, or are open to having children in the future.

I make sure that when I'm looking at guys' profiles, I don't just swipe right if they look good. I spend time reading their profile to find out what they think about having children. A lot of the men who swipe right on me clearly don't do this, because once I start messaging them, I quickly find out they do want kids.

I also wish the apps didn't suggest profiles of men who want kids. It wastes my time having to filter out who does and doesn't want kids.

Not too long ago, I matched with someone who I thought was really cute and started talking to him. He had so much potential, and I was really excited about the prospect. But after a few hours of back and forth, I brought up the dealbreaker question and he said he did want kids. He made the decision to cut me off, which I totally understood, but was disappointed by.

Certain apps allow you to pay extra if you want to filter out profiles that wouldn't match with yours, but it can cost up to $25 a week. I can't afford that.

I'll continue using the apps for now, even though I find them irritating as a childfree woman, but I'm content and not taking dating seriously right now. There are moments I feel I'd love to have a romantic partner to live life with, but overall, I'm happy working, hanging out with friends, and enjoying my own company.