For many parents, sending their children off to college can be a difficult experience. It is especially hard for parents who are then left with an empty nest, as they have to adjust to not having children around the house to take care of for the first time in years.

Cheryl Gottlieb Boxer is one mother who had trouble adjusting to life as an empty nester. It was hard enough dropping her son off at college for the start of his freshman year, so when it came time for her to send him off again for his second semester, letting him go was even more difficult. Cheryl managed to be strong and drop her son off at the train station before she returned home to a house that seemed far more quiet without him.

When she arrived back home, Cheryl was stunned to find a surprise from her son that she was never expecting! The young man had left notes for her all over the house in order to try and make the process of him leaving again easier for her. Cheryl took to Facebook to post about the notes, and the post quickly went viral.

Here’s what Cheryl wrote:

“Today we dropped our son off at the train station to return to college for the spring semester of his freshman year.

“I returned home and found the house too quiet. I missed his chatter, his guitar music, and video games.

“Every corner of the house felt barren in his absence.

“And then I started finding notes. Everywhere. He left me notes in all the places he knows I’ll find them. “Have a nice bath” on the edge of the bathtub.

“You look beautiful” on the mirror of my medicine cabinet. “I love you” inside my coffee maker.

“Finding these notes has made me so happy. And I keep finding more. Each note I find I’m afraid is the last, but then I find another.

“When he called me with a travel update, I asked him why he left them, and he told me because he doesn’t want me to forget him.

“As if that’s possible.

“I assume by now he has found the note I left inside the dinner I packed for him. “Be careful, and I  love you.”

“Because I don’t want him to forget me either.”

Social media users from all over the globe were touched by Cheryl’s post.

“What a lucky Mom you are to have such a thoughtful young man. I think he is lucky too! You’ve done a great job!” one user wrote, with another adding, “I once left an ‘I love you’ note taped to my mom’s bathroom mirror when I went back to college after break. It’s still there 27 years later.”

Cheryl and her son really are lucky to have each other!