1999

Author and crime victim advocate Lindsay Schraad Keeling, 32, has people laughing and feeling a little creeped out after sharing a sympathy card she made for a teacher when she was 7 in 1999. The card shows that even though Keeling’s heart was in the right place, she had yet to grasp how to tactfully bring up a loved one’s death.

Keeling is the author of the upcoming “The Funeral Director’s Wife” and co-author of the award-winning “Where the Trail Ends: The Kenny Suttner Story.”

It all started when the principal at Keeling's school announced to her class that the computer teacher’s mother had passed away, so they'd have a substitute teacher. “He didn’t ask for any drawings or sympathy cards or anything, but when I got home, I decided I wanted to do something nice for my teacher,” she told People. “I had just learned about death as a child after our pet died and my mom read me a book about dying.”

The self-proclaimed “emotional child” made a sympathy card for her teacher and showed it to her mother. “I’m sure I was very proud of it because I excitedly showed it to my mother — who was wise enough to gently take it from me so I couldn’t give it to my teacher,” she told Today.com.

The card reads:

By Lindsay, to computer teacher
Sory teacher.
I am so sory computer teacher that your mom had to die. Sory.
But everybody hasts to die some day.
And today it was your mom’s turn to die.
Love love is in your hart.

The card eventually found its way to a box of mementos and Keeling wouldn’t see it again for another 25 years. When she recently returned to her family’s home in Oklahoma after her grandfather's passing, her mother showed her the card.

"I was very upset, and my mother wanted to cheer me up, so she went through a box of keepsakes she’d been keeping for 25 years and showed me the ‘sympathy card’ I’d made for my teacher,” Keeling told People. "I was very young when I wrote the card, so I do not remember writing it. My mother remembers me showing her full of excitement," she told Upworthy.

Keeling wasn't surprised that her mother had saved the card. "She’s the best mom and is very sentimental like me, so it makes sense that she would save the card for 25 years," she told Upworthy.

Later, she posted images of the card to TikTok, where it’s been viewed over 3 million times.

Many people in the comments thought the card was unsettling, especially coming from a young child. "This reads like you're the one who did it,” one commenter wrote. Another added, "A Sympathy card apparently written by JIGSAW,” referencing the killer in the “Saw” franchise.

The story inspired many people to share the “unhinged” sympathy cards they’ve seen children write. "My grandma died. A student gave me a card. They drew her in the casket,” a teacher wrote. "My grandpa died in December, and the card my 8-year-old made him when he got sick said, 'I hope you enjoy your life while it lasts,' with a picture of a gravestone,” another commenter added.

"The funniest reaction was when someone said, 'This ain’t no sympathy card. It’s a sympathy book.' And someone else said, 'The way it’s arranged like a book, so it hits you in the face over and over again.' I was cracking up at all the comments," Keeling told Upworthy.

Ultimately, Keeling’s curious card from 1999 brought smiles to many faces and also helped cheer up those who could use a sympathy card themselves.

"The most touching reaction is when people say this is the first time they’ve actually laughed in weeks due to a loss of their own," Keeling told Upworthy. "I am so glad I could bring a few minutes of joy in a very dark time in someone’s life."