When Stephanie Morrison, a mom of three, was returning home from a morning walk with her kids two weeks ago, she said a stranger said something to her that brought her to tears.
The comment stuck with the 33-year-old so much she said she felt compelled to share it in a now-viral TikTok post, which has been viewed over 836,000 times since Oct. 25.
In the video, Morrison says the stranger, whom she describes as an elderly man, stopped to tell her, "Wow, you're gonna have a lot of fun."
"I don't know why I'm getting emotional telling you now, but most people say, like, 'Oh, you have your hands full.' And it's my biggest pet peeve," Morrison says in the video. "But he was so sweet, and I could, like, see the memories flash through his eyeballs."
Mom says she wants to stop hearing this message from other parentsMorrison, who lives with her family in Orange County, California, told "Good Morning America" the experience was completely unexpected for her but "affirmed" how she felt about becoming a mom to her daughter Mackenzie, 4, and sons Dustin, 2, and Brayden, 11 weeks.
"I stopped in my tracks and just said, like, 'Oh my God, thank you,'" Morrison recalled. "And as I started walking away, the tears were just flowing down my face."
Morrison said she wanted to post about the encounter because she felt other parents could benefit from hearing about the "very kind gesture."
"It was the sweetest message that I think I needed to hear -- and clearly, a lot of other moms too," Morrison said of the reception to her TikTok post.
Fellow moms left comments on Morrison's TikTok post, relaying the encouraging and heartwarming messages they'd received themselves.
"My only son is 7 months. I can't have any more kids due to life-threatening complications at birth. The other day a man said to me 'he gets to have you all to himself, isn't that so special?' I cried," one person commented.
Another TikTok user wrote, "The same thing happened to me today this older woman stopped me and my kids jumping in leaves and she said 'I used to bring my kids here. you and your babies will have these memories forever.'"
Morrison said she hopes to continue to spread the same message the stranger shared with her and hopes to thank him in person in the near future for making her day.
"We just need support at the end of the day, like, it's the best thing we've ever done, it's the hardest thing we've ever done, and to hear that we're gonna have a lot of fun regardless of what happens in this season of our life, it was necessary," she added. "So, there is really no words to thank my kind neighbor man."
