I never expected anything from her affairs, so I had no reason to anticipate surprises. The day after the service, I was still sorting through my thoughts when the phone rang. It was her son, his voice tense and shaken, carrying a mix of frustration and confusion that spilled out almost immediately.
While sorting through a box of his mother’s old keepsakes, he had come across a letter. It wasn’t addressed to him. It was addressed to me.
She explained that the formal arrangements of her estate were set long before, and changing anything would have caused more stress than she could handle in her final chapter. Still, she wanted me to know that the comfort and steadiness I had offered mattered to her more than anything she could have left behind.
But that wasn’t what had upset her son.
In the same box, he found receipts, notes, and a few photographs—quiet clues that she had once considered creating a small trust for him. She never followed through. Instead, as her health shifted, she spent her time trying to repair their strained connection.
He hadn’t understood any of this until he held those papers in his hands and read her written regrets.
He spoke in waves, trying to make sense of emotions that had arrived all at once. I let him speak. Sometimes the best thing we can offer someone is the space to release what has been building silently for years.
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