For some reason, kind gestures from children just hit different.
I've never even met this child. To him, I think I'm "the artist his grandma works with". She buys things from me to give as gifts to him, and I've even designed a few things special at her request.
He's big into Minecraft and thought the axolotls were neat, but didn't realize they were a real animal, so I texted his grandma pictures of my axolotl, Kragg, to show him. He was very excited to see pictures of a real one.
I had to give Kragg up the other month due to water damage to the floor under his aquarium (damage was unrelated to the aquarium itself), and I didn't have another location to move him to. His new owners have tons of aquatic animal experience and I kept in touch to make sure he recovered from the move okay.
What I didn't know was that this kid's grandma told him I no longer own Kragg.
So when I was handed an axolotl-shaped air freshener, I thought it was cute. Then she tells me that her grandson had seen it while they were doing back-to-school shopping and asked if they could get it for me to remind me of Kragg because I probably miss him.
... Needless to say, I teared up a little bit at work.













