Thrift store discovery has woman feeling emotional over item’s “backstory”

A woman got emotional after finding an item in a local thrift store that had once meant a lot to someone.

Thrifting, the act of purchasing a secondhand item at a discounted rate, is an increasingly popular practice in the U.S. According to a Statista Consumer Insights survey from last August, around 60 percent of U.S. adults made at least one secondhand purchase over the past year.

That’s a significant increase from the 49 percent who said they bought secondhand items when the survey was conducted in 2019.

Gabrielle Hernandez, 26, from New Hampshire, has embraced thrifting more than most. In August 2023, she gave up a career teaching in special education to start her own thrifting business, a website selling a collection of carefully curated pieces that all originate from thrift stores.

“I have been thrifting for as long as I can remember,” she told Newsweek. “My mom used to take my sister and I, and we would have a blast. I continued to thrift as I got older, and eventually, I turned my passion into a job. In 2018, I created an Instagram page, @gabgrabs, where I would sell the items I thrifted. The account took off!”

According to Hernandez, every trip to the thrift store is a “scavenger hunt.”

“You can go in with no expectations and leave with the most magical pieces,” she said. “I admire vintage, specifically 80s and 90s, and what better place to find those pieces than a thrift store.”

But while the majority of her searches are about uncovering hidden gems, now and then, she comes across something that stops her in her tracks for altogether different reasons. That happened during a trip to one of her local thrift spots when she came across a sweater that had her tearing up.

In an Instagram video, Hernandez gave viewers a glimpse of the garment. It might have been an ordinary white sweater, but the message written on the front left her feeling emotional.

It said, “I love you mom,” alongside two painted handprints and what looked like a drawing of either a child and their mom or two siblings. The implication of finding such a personal piece in the shop was clear to Hernandez.

“When I saw it, all I could think was that a mother had passed,” she said. “It made me emotional because since I thrift so often, I see a lot. What most people don’t realize is a lot of the items come from deaths.

“You will come across a collection of sweaters saying, ‘world’s best grandma,’ right next to one that says, ‘my grandkids hold the key to my heart.’ Right then and there, you will know the grandparent has passed, and their whole collection was donated.”

This isn’t the first time Hernandez has found herself getting teary-eyed over something she discovered in a thrift store.

“I get emotional over pieces like this because every clothing item has a backstory, and though we may never know it, clothing items hold memories in them,” she said.

She hopes that the clip helps others to realize that thrift can be an emotional experience and that it is important sometimes to “take a step back to realize what we are now just carelessly sifting through at a thrift store could have been someone’s prized possession.”