Estrella Quiroz was driving to lunch on a hot June afternoon in Miami when she noticed an elderly woman walking alone.

She kept thinking about her grandmother.

So Estrella stopped, offered the stranger a ride and bought her food from Wendy’s. It was something the 29-year-old had never done before. She also happened to record the encounter, even though she had never shown her face in a TikTok vlog before.

At first, the woman was confused.

“Why are you taking me?” Lilian, 97, asked from the car.

Estrella told her, “you remind me of my grandma.”

What Estrella couldn’t explain in that moment was why small chances to connect with another person had come to matter so much to her. The answer went back more than a decade, to three phone calls she didn’t pick up.

The Calls She Thought She Could Return Later

Estrella was 17 when her father was deported to Nicaragua.

She remained in the United States. Then, three days after her 18th birthday, her 50-year-old father collapsed while getting off a bus in Nicaragua. He died alone at a hospital.

Only after learning that he was gone did Estrella return to the messages on her phone.

Her father had called three times in the days before his death.

She hadn’t answered.

The voicemails were still there.

In one of them, her father told his daughter that he loved her. He also said he hoped “a million angels” would look after her.

Estrella has carried guilt about missing those calls, she told PEOPLE, which first reported her story. She hadn’t known there would be no next conversation, no chance to call back when life was less busy.

But the messages gave her something else to carry.

She could still hear him.

The words her father left behind became part of the way Estrella thought about what people say to each other, and what can disappear when those words are postponed.

His Messages Followed Her Into Adulthood

Estrella went to college and wanted to see the world, even though she didn’t have the money to travel easily.

She found ways to do it through scholarships, loans and credit cards. Eventually, she visited 45 countries. Along the way, strangers welcomed her into their homes and showed her acts of kindness she would remember long after leaving.

Those experiences sat beside the memory of her father.

Estrella grew up as the daughter of immigrants with little money, she told PEOPLE. Her father had still given what he could, and she came to see generosity as something that didn’t require wealth.

Years after his death, the messages he left became part of her work as well.

In June 2024, Estrella and a co-founder incorporated Last Farewell, a company built around planned final messages and personalized memorial pages. Its stated mission is to “leave no words left unspoken.”

For Estrella, that idea wasn’t theoretical.

Her father had died with almost nothing financially, but his voice remained on her phone. She said the words her parents left behind had become deeply meaningful to her.

Then came the June afternoon when she saw Lilian walking in the heat.

A Ride Became Something Neither Woman Expected

Once Lilian was in the car, Estrella learned that she had been an accountant and now lived alone on government assistance.

The 97-year-old relied on public transportation to get around. Most of her Social Security income went toward rent, leaving little for other needs. Despite her age, Estrella was struck by how alert she was; Lilian even directed her through the streets as they drove.

Estrella posted the video of their meeting almost on a whim.

By the next morning, it had taken off online. Viewers began asking how they could help the woman in the passenger seat, so Estrella created a GoFundMe with an initial goal of $5,000.

In less than 10 hours, donations passed $8,000.

By the time PEOPLE published the story, more than $22,000 had been raised to help Lilian with food, bills and a new walker. Wendy’s also sent her a gift card.

Lilian had trouble understanding why so many strangers suddenly knew about her.

Estrella kept visiting anyway.

Then, among all the details they exchanged, Lilian mentioned where she was born.

The City Was the Part Estrella Couldn’t Shake

Lilian was from León, Nicaragua.

Estrella knew the city immediately.

Her father is buried there.

For Estrella, the detail felt different from the viral video, the donations or the odds of meeting someone nearly seven decades older than herself on one random Miami afternoon.

Years earlier, a father in Nicaragua had left three messages for the daughter he couldn’t reach. In one, he had wished that a million angels would watch over her.

Now a 97-year-old stranger from the same city where he was buried had appeared on the side of a Miami road.

“I really do think Lilian was an angel in my life, a living angel,” Estrella told PEOPLE. “I just think she came at the right time.”

Estrella has continued checking on Lilian since that first ride. She has also offered rides to other strangers, carrying forward the kind of help she received during her own travels.

The three calls from her father can never be answered now.

But his words weren’t lost.

Years after he recorded them, Estrella was still hearing his voice, still building work around words people shouldn’t wait to say, and still thinking about the promise inside that last wish.

This time, when a “living angel” appeared walking alone in the Miami heat, Estrella stopped the car.