When I was 11, my world was turned upside down when my mom tragically died in a freak beach drowning. She had always been an excellent swimmer, but a rip tide caught her, and despite her best efforts, she was pulled under.

The waves were relentless, and in an instant, my mother was gone. I remember my dad being absolutely shattered. He didn’t know how to function without her, and neither did I. Our world felt hollow, and we struggled to adjust to the absence she left behind. In the years that followed, I tried my best to keep the memory of her alive. I looked at old photos of her, and I kept telling myself that I had to move on, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was missing. I didn’t just miss my mother—I missed the life we used to have before tragedy struck.

Flash forward to last month. I was in Paris for work, standing outside a quaint café near the Seine. My mind was distracted by the beauty of the city when my eyes caught sight of a woman who looked uncannily like my mom. I froze. The resemblance was too striking to ignore. My heart pounded as I walked toward her. I felt an unexplainable pull…