"It was what made me feel like I still had him with me," said Brooklynn Hanselman of what she calls her most prized possession.
It's a necklace that doubles as home for the ashes and memory of her father, who she lost to gun violence 6 years ago.
"To me it was like a big part of my life because it’s really all I had left," the Livonia teen said.
So Hanselman was devastated, when it went missing during a senior picture session over the weekend, at multiple locations, including Belle Isle.
"Now that it was gone, I felt like her was gone forever," she added.
With no luck finding it in person, her family took the call for help to social media. What happened next, they said, was unimaginable. That post was shared over a thousand times, just enough to get to Maria Provost, the woman who fatefully found it in a grassy field on Belle Isle.
"I knew, there was something special about it," said the Hamtramck resident.
Provost reached out to her mother and happily returned it, adding a heartfelt note.
But today Hanselman showed her heartfelt gratitude in return, by hugging and thanking Provost in person.
It was reunion with the woman that led her to a reunion with her father.
"It doesn’t feel like a coincidence to me, I feel like someone is looking out for her," said Provost.
Brooklyn thinks that “someone looking out” could be her father.
With a happy heart, the family expressed their thanks to the community of people who shared that post. Without that, they said they know this happy ending wouldn’t be possible.
