The no written on the wall

There was a number written on the wall opposite my bedroom.Not painted.Not printed.Just written with an ordinary black pen.

17I had no idea who had written it.The first time I noticed it, I was eleven.Our house had been renovated that summer, and my mother had insisted that I help clean my room before the new furniture arrived. While moving an old cupboard away from the wall, I saw the number 17.

I assumed it was something left behind by the workers.

I rubbed it with my finger.It didn’t disappear.My mother tried wiping it with a wet cloth, but the ink had somehow seeped into the paint.

“Probably some worker’s marking,” she said.We painted the wall a few weeks later.The number disappeared.I forgot about it.Until years later.When I was seventeen.

It appeared again.Same wall.Same handwriting.Same number.17.I stared at it for several minutes.I asked my mother whether she had noticed it.

She went strangely quiet.Then she said, “Don’t worry about it.”That answer worried me more.“What does it mean?”“Nothing.”“Then why did you say don’t worry?”

She looked at the wall for a moment and then walked away.I followed her into the kitchen.She wouldn’t explain.That evening, I asked my father.He also refused to answer.

Eventually I became convinced that they were hiding something from me.I searched through old family photographs.Nothing.I looked through documents.

Nothing.I even searched old boxes stored under the bed.Nothing.The number became an obsession.For the next few weeks, I noticed it everywhere.

On buses.On receipts.On apartment doors.On pages of books.It was ridiculous.I knew that.But when something appears mysteriously in your own bedroom twice, your brain starts creating stories.I began wondering whether 17 was connected to someone who had lived in our house before us.Maybe someone had died there.

Maybe it was a date.Maybe it was an address.Maybe it was a warning.Then, one afternoon, I came home early from school and found my mother sitting on the floor of my room.

She was staring at the wall.At the number.I had never seen her look frightened like that.“What is it?” I asked.She immediately stood up.

“Nothing.”“Mom.”She sighed.Then she sat on my bed.“I wanted to tell you when you were older.”“I’m seventeen.”

“I’m seventeen.”“I know.”She looked at the wall again.“Your grandmother wrote that number.”I frowned.“My grandmother?”

She nodded.My grandmother had died when I was very young. I barely remembered her.“Why?”My mother took a deep breath.“Because she knew she was going to die.”

I felt a chill.Apparently, when my mother was pregnant with me, my grandmother became seriously ill.She had spent months in the hospital.Doctors weren’t sure how much time she had.

One evening, she asked my mother to bring her a notebook.Inside that notebook, she wrote several things.Names.Dates.Little messages.And one number.

1. 17.

My mother didn’t understand it.Until I was born.I was born on the 17th.My grandmother died seventeen days later.My mother had kept the notebook for years.

“But why would she write it on my wall?” I asked.“She didn’t.”My mother looked at me.

“That’s what I don’t understand.”The number had apparently appeared on the wall when I was eleven.There was no logical explanation.My father had painted the room himself.

My mother insisted nobody had written anything there.I laughed nervously.“So Grandma somehow came back and wrote a number on my wall?”

My mother didn’t laugh.“I don’t know.”That night I couldn’t sleep.I kept looking at the wall.The number seemed darker in the moonlight.

I finally got out of bed and touched it.Nothing happened.After that, I stopped thinking about it.Life became busy.College.Friends.Exams.My first job.

My parents getting older.The number faded into the background of my life.Until my mother called me one evening.Her voice sounded different.She told me my father had been admitted to hospital.

I drove there immediately.He had suffered a serious heart problem.The doctors said the next few days were important.I stayed beside him.For two nights I barely slept.

On the third morning, I went home to shower and change.As I entered my old bedroom, I saw something on the wall.I froze.The number was back.17.I immediately called my mother.

She came into the room.When she saw it, she began crying.“What happened?” I asked.She couldn’t answer.Then she told me something she had never told me before.

My grandmother hadn’t only written the number in her notebook.She had also written a sentence underneath it.My mother had never shown it to me.

She finally opened an old photograph album and took out a folded piece of paper.The handwriting was shaky.The sentence said:“When you see 17 again, remember that someone in this family needs to be reminded that they are not alone.”I read it twice.Then I understood.17 wasn’t a prediction.

It wasn’t a warning.It wasn’t a date announcing someone’s death.It was a reminder.My grandmother had known she wouldn’t be around to watch my mother become a mother herself.

She wanted to leave behind something that would make my mother stop and remember her.And somehow, years later, my mother had passed that reminder to me without realizing it.

My father survived.He spent several weeks recovering.When he finally came home, he was weaker than before but still making terrible jokes.

One evening, I told him about the number.He stared at me.Then he smiled.“You know,” he said, “your grandmother loved strange little signs.”

“Did you know about it?”He shook his head.“I knew about the notebook. I didn’t know about the wall.”

I looked at the faded number.“Do you believe she wrote it?”He thought for a while.“No.”I laughed.“Then what do you believe?”

He looked at me.“I believe some things don’t need an explanation to have meaning.”A few months later, we renovated the room again.This time, I refused to let anyone paint over the number.

My mother framed the section of the wall.It hangs in our hallway now.People ask why there is a random 17 inside a frame.We usually smile and say it’s a family story.

Because it is.But I don’t think the number is really about my grandmother anymore.I think it has become something else.A reminder that families leave pieces of themselves behind.

Sometimes through photographs.Sometimes through stories.Sometimes through habits.And sometimes through something as inexplicable as a number written on a wall.I used to think the number meant someone was coming.Now I think it means someone already did.Someone loved us enough to leave a reminder behind.And perhaps that’s why it keeps appearing.

Not to tell us what will happen.But to remind us that whatever happens, we don’t have to face it alone.