Abandoned Boy Freezes When He Sees the Market Vendor…

She Looks EXACTLY Like His Mother Who Died Years Ago*

Tomás was only five—
yet he walked through life like someone much older.

Barefoot, hungry, and soaked from the morning rain, he wandered the muddy streets of the village with a small, trembling body and a heart that carried more loneliness than any child should ever know.

He had no home.
No family.
No one who said his name with love.

People simply called him “the abandoned boy.”
A shadow drifting between market stalls, invisible to everyone except the stray dogs searching for food.

Tomás slept beneath a torn tarp behind the busy market on Commerce Street. At night, with his tiny stomach aching, he whispered to the stars, begging them to tell his mother—who now lived in heaven—that he missed her. That he still needed her.

But on this morning, something impossible happened.

As he trudged past puddles, head down, something made him stop.

A woman.

Standing behind a wooden table stacked with tomatoes, carrots, and onions.

When Tomás lifted his eyes and saw her—

his heart stopped.

Her face.
Her hair.
Her gentle eyes.

She looked exactly—exactly—like his mother Alma.

He blinked rapidly, wondering if grief was playing tricks on him. But she didn’t disappear. She simply watched him with a quiet, soft concern.

“Do you need something, sweetheart?” she asked.

Tomás couldn’t answer.
Every emotion he had swallowed for months rose in his throat at once.

It was her.
Or someone who could’ve been her twin.

“What’s your name?” the woman asked gently.

“T-Tomás,” he whispered. “My mom’s name was Alma. She looked just like you…”

The woman froze.

A shadow of shock crossed her face.

Something inside her stirred—an old ache, a memory she had locked away years ago.

“Come here, Tomás,” she finally said, covering her produce with a tarp as the rain began again. “You can’t stay out here like this.”

The little boy hesitated… then stepped closer.

She wrapped her shawl around him, bringing him into the warmth of her small stall. She handed him a piece of bread and a carrot. Tomás held them with trembling hands, as if she’d given him a priceless treasure.

“Why are you the same as my mom?” he asked softly.

The woman didn’t answer at first.

Then Tomás pulled something from beneath his shirt—
A small metal locket.
Inside, a photo of a young woman smiling.

The woman took the locket.

When she opened it—

her breath caught in her throat.

The face inside…

It was her.

Or rather—
the face of her twin sister, Alma.

The sister who vanished years ago.
The sister she searched for until grief swallowed her whole.

“Tomás…” the woman whispered. “Your mother… what happened to her?”

“She got sick,” Tomás murmured. “Then she went to heaven. I’ve been alone since.”