Every year on Oct. 29, at exactly 1:11 a.m. — the time he was born — Josh Chace’s mother would send him a birthday text.

“Happy birthday to the best guy I know,” she wrote him in 2012.

“A very happy 35th Josh,” she wrote in 2014. “Dad and I are very proud of you and your family.”

After Chace’s mother, Carol Chace, died unexpectedly in 2021, the 1:11 a.m. birthday messages stopped. The annual silence became a painful reminder of the loss.

“She would stay up the night before my birthday just to text me,” said Chace, who lives in Merrimack, New Hampshire.

On his birthday last year, Chace shared screenshots of his mom’s old 1:11 a.m. messages on Reddit, figuring others might relate.

“I think it helps people,” he said, adding that he also felt it would be a way to “keep her memory alive.”

See Full Page