Six days after Larry’s burial, I found his letter in my mailbox, tucked between a phone bill and a grocery flyer. I recognized his handwriting immediately. Even after everything we had been through, seeing those familiar, uneven letters made me smile through my tears. I stood outside holding the envelope against my chest, unable to open it. Larry had been gone for less than a week, and I was still learning how to live in a world where I could no longer hear his footsteps or his quiet jokes from the next room.

During his final weeks in hospice care, Larry had refused to let anyone do the simplest things for him. His hands trembled, and writing had become difficult, but whenever a nurse offered to complete his paperwork, he would shake his head and say, “My hand still works. Mostly.” That was Larry. He could face the hardest parts of life with a little humor, even when his body was failing him. I assumed the letter contained a final goodbye, perhaps a few words of gratitude or something comforting he wanted me to remember. But as I turned the envelope over, I noticed something unusual written beneath my name. It was a sentence I had never expected to see, and suddenly I was afraid to open it.