Letter to future self

This is a story that I thought was well worth the share with the family here. Story and video.

Johnson City TN girl's letter to future self goes viral, serves as inspiration after her sudden death:



Johnson City 12-year-old Taylor Scout Smith took the rare initiative to write her future self a letter, using the header 'To be opened by Taylor Smith on April 13, 2023 only unless said otherwise' on the outside.

Her future, 22-year-old self never got a chance to see the note again, to ponder the questions asked by her 2013 counterpart.

Smith died Sunday from complications related to pneumonia, and her grieving parents found the note she'd written herself as they were cleaning up the room, the life she left behind.

According to Johnson City TV station WJHL, her shocked parents found a measure of comfort in the letter, and the manner in which they've dealt with their loss and the heartbreak of the situation have helped the story gain national attention.

"Initially it's shock, and waves of depression, and hoping that it's not real, and hoping that every time you take a nap or go to sleep you find out it wasn't real," Taylor's Dad Tim Smith told WJHL.

He went on to add, “you see all the other things that she's done that you didn't know about, things at youth group, things at school, things where she just touched people's lives in ways that are unbelievable” and noted that her strong faith has been a comfort to the family.

“The only thing I can say is that right now it's easy for me to trust God because my baby girl trusted him,” said Smith.

Her thoughts and questions about what the future might hold have also served to inspire people from all corners of the country, people who never met her.

According to the station, the letter ended with the thought, “Well, I think that's all, but remember it's been 10 years since I wrote this. Stuff has happened good and bad, that's just how life works and you have to go with it.”

Source: Knox News, Knoxville Tennessee.