The Communication

She and her hubby used to use “143” on the pager to say “I love you” as many people did. The numbers relate to the number of letters in the three words and had been around for over a century, from when a lighthouse in the Boston area of the US used the sequence for its light in the late 1800s.

She had not thought of the number for years after her spouse passed away in 2015. But then a friend called and said, “I’m sending you a photo.”

The photo was of a car odometer. It was reading 143143. The friend related, “I was driving on the highway, looked down and saw that on the odometer. I knew what it meant for you so I wanted to pull over, take a photo and send it to you. But I couldn’t pull over then. I kept going a bit and finally pulled over, sure that it was going to be ruined. I was surprised that it still said 143143. As I snapped the photo, I heard your husband said, ‘Tell her that she’s going to be alright.'”