Mom reunited with photos of toddler who died of cancer last year

Rachel Thomson is “over the moon” to have been reunited with her lost cellphone containing hundreds of images of her toddler son who died last year of cancer.

Thomson learned Tuesday morning that the phone she thought she’d lost Sunday near the Co-op grocery store on 16th Avenue and 5th Street N.E. had been found.

It contained the last photos she had taken of her son, Zachary, before he died last July from a form of cancer called Rhabdomyosarcoma.

Tuesday morning, she met with the man who found her missing Samsung Galaxy phone. No questions were asked during the awkward meeting at a Saddle Ridge parking lot, she said.

She just thanked him and hugged him.

“I’m just so happy. It means so much to me to have it back. I’m so relieved that it was returned to me and that everything is intact,” Thomson said.

“(Zachary) was two and a half. I have his entire life on that phone. We were pretty avid photo takers of him, especially during his treatment.”

Thomson said she is grateful to the people who shared her story online and in the media.

She said the man who returned her phone saw the stories in the media and decided to reach out to her by email and through a local TV station.

“I’m going to make sure that I have lots of different backups from now on,” Thomson said. “I’ve invested in a Dropbox account.”