Woman Shares Texts from Mother-in-Law About Dinner Plans After Her Mom Dies — and Her Message Goes Viral (Exclusive)

Macie Wood tells PEOPLE about her relationship with her mother-in-law Annie after she lost her own mom to colon cancer

A Louisiana woman is going viral on TikTok after sharing the texts she received from her mother-in-law after her own mother died.

Macie Wood, 33, tells PEOPLE that she lost her own mom at age 20, to colon cancer.

Wood, who at the time had a 7-month-old child, said the experience was "life-altering" for her.

"My mother was my best friend," she tells PEOPLE.

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Just one day after her mom's funeral, Wood's father-in-law was diagnosed with colon cancer — a year later, he died, too.

"My mother-in-law was going through her own life-altering event," Wood says, adding that the two bonded over their shared losses and that Annie — her husband's mom — ultimately became "the rock of our family."

"Annie is the absolute matriarch. I have so many friends that don’t have that relationship with their mother-in-law, so I feel very lucky," Wood says.

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Wood, a high school English teacher, tells PEOPLE that after her own mom died, Annie stepped in by helping with daily texts, often texting Wood during her busy day to alert her that dinner was covered.

"She’ll text me at work, 'Hey baby, food's on the stove,' " Wood says. "Randomly. I don't ask her to do this. She does it out of the goodness of her heart. As a busy mother, having that small act of kindness is the largest act of love."

In other messages shared to her TikTok, Annie tells Wood what's on the menu: "I made spaghetti in the crockpot for supper," reads one. "I fixed dirty rice and garlic bread for supper," reads another.

While Annie's text messages are short and to-the-point, they illustrate love and affection — and help fill a hole that was left with the death of Wood's mother.

Wood — who is a mother to five children and, in addition to her full-time teaching job, is currently getting her master's degree — says the dinners have been beyond helpful for a busy mom. But even more than that, the acts of service have demonstrated kindness and love when Wood needed it most.

"When you need your mom the most is when you are a young mother and that's when I lost mine," Wood says. "But that's when my mother-in-law turned into my mother-in-love."

Wood continues: "It takes someone extremely selfless and special to unintentionally fill a void in someone else’s life. She doesn’t do it for accolades, she doesn't do it to be some hero. It is just innately ingrained in her DNA. The world can use more hearts like hers."

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