The grown-up versions of us.
And he was supposed to tell us something.
You were loved.
That was the whole mission.
Margaret wanted us to know that somewhere inside our childhood was a man and woman we barely remembered who had loved watching us grow.
People who had never been able to have children but had quietly treated an entire neighborhood like their own.
She wanted us to know that the love had been real.
That even if we never noticed it, it had mattered.
And that as adulthood became complicated and disappointing and lonely, we should remember that at some point in our lives, simply running toward an ice cream truck had made someone happy.
It took Walter more than a decade to keep the promise.
Grief, he wrote, doesn’t follow schedules.
Eventually, though, he bought an old used ice cream truck.
Then he began searching.
Old neighbors.
