Mom Finds Mysterious Drawing At Soldier Son’s Grave, Then Tracks Down 7-Yr-Old Stranger To Say “Thank You.”

Young Mason Lee had no idea the kind of impact his simple gesture at a North Carolina cemetery would have, but a grieving mother was so touched that she made the effort to track him down to return the act of kindness.

This story dates back to May 2016, when 6-year-old Mason arrived with his family at Wilmington National Cemetery over the Memorial Day weekend. Mason’s mother, Sarah, was honoring the nation’s fallen soldiers by placing small flags on their graves when she realized her son was nowhere to be seen. She eventually found him, standing solemnly at the grave site of one Sergeant TJ Butler, pictured below with his wife and son.

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Mason had been drawn there for some reason, and “had a lot of questions. He wanted to know if he had a son and a family, and wanted to know more about him,”Lee said. “It was really touching because you could tell he was really soaking it all in. That this was somebody’s son, somebody’s daddy.â€

TJ was killed in a suicide bombing on Oct. 1, 2012, in Khost, Afghanistan.

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Mason’s family visited the cemetery again this year, and this time the boy brought a special gift to place on TJ’s gravesite: a hand-drawn version of the shield carried by Captain America. He even covered the drawing in plastic to protect it against rain.

“It must have made a huge impact on him to be that young and remember something like that,”Mason’s mother said.

Soon after, Leslie Butler– mother of the fallen soldier– found Mason’s drawing while visiting her son’s grave. Leslie was so touched, she tracked the family down, then asked to meet them at TJ’s grave on the 4th of July.