The other day, the people of the internet proved that occasionally they are capable of more than policing everything each other says when they helped a woman decipher a mysterious collection of index cards written by her now-deceased grandmother 20 years ago.

Here’s the story: Back in 1996, a woman died of cancer. In the few weeks before her death, she was unable to communicate, but wrote down long series of seemingly random letters on index cards. She died and her family spent the next almost two decades not knowing what the letters on the cards meant. On Monday, the woman’s granddaughter posted on Metafilter to see if possibly people wanted to take a crack at figuring it out.

My grandmother passed away in 1996 of a fast-spreading cancer. She was non-communicative her last two weeks, but in that time, she left at least 20 index cards with scribbled letters on them. My cousins and I were between 8-10 years old at the time, and believed she was leaving us a code. We puzzled over them for a few months trying substitution ciphers, and didn’t get anywhere.

It appears they succeeded – inside 15 minutes. It seems each letter was the first letter of a word of prayer, a theory put forth by user harperpitt:

Was she a religious woman? The last As, as well as the AAA combo, make me think of “Amen, amen, amen.” So extrapolating — TYAGF = “Thank you Almighty God for…”

It would make sense to end with “Thank you, Almighty God, for everything, Amen – Thank you, Almighty God, for everything, Amen, Amen, Amen.”

OFWAIHHBTNTKCTWBDOEAIIIHFUTDODBAFUOT
AWFTWTAUALUNITBDUFEFTITKTPATGFAEA

Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name… etc etc etc

It’s all pretty cool – check out the whole thread here.