The unconventional family tradition goes viral: “So emotional”

Sometimes it's the unexpected things from childhood that remain as precious memories.

This was evident in a TikTok video posted by Karly (@karlywalkerr) that went viral after she revealed the tradition she and her sisters have been doing for over seven years – putting fruit stickers on the bottom of their parents' kitchen cabinet. Since the clip was posted on October 2, it has received over 742,000 likes and more than 730 comments.

“One time in high school I put the sticker of my apple under my parents' closet,” Karly captioned the video. “I told my sisters about it and we kept it a secret from my mother for years. It’s been more than seven years and now my parents know, but they love it too much to remove it.” Newsweek asked @karlywalkerr for comment via TikTok.

Viewers flooded the comments with their own stories of unexpected – and sometimes gross – memorabilia.

“This is like when my brother and I threw bologna on my mom's stair balcony, behind picture frames no one could reach, and she found it moldy years later,” @allyroselucky wrote.

“I wish my parents reacted like that when they found all the fruit roll wrappers I had stashed under the couch because I had been secretly stealing them for months,” @shelbykalei wrote.

“I once left a farewell post-it on my parents' bedroom desk when I left for my study abroad trip,” commented @mantreehill. “My mother found it a year later, sobbing and calling me to say how much she missed me.”

Many mothers were positive about Karly's video in the comments, saying they would give anything for such an unfiltered reminder of their children's younger years: “As a mother, I would have sobbed if I had found it,” wrote @emily.morgan .O. “Just little reminders of my babies would make me so happy.”

“This is actually such an unexpectedly adorable little memory collage,” wrote @raeeeeek1993.

“Why did this make me emotional,” @hukitchen commented.

And one mother even spoke from her own experience. User @nativetexan71 shared that her kids did the exact same thing with fruit stickers on the bottom of her bar. While she made her remove the stickers the first few times, she eventually “decided to fall in love with it.” Her children are now in their mid-20s.

If Karly's parents decide to keep the sticker collage forever, some users are offering creative ways to memorialize her in a more formal way.

“Can you put resin on it when it's completely full?” @comewhatmay__ wrote. “This would be a great story for your children.”