Becoming the Letter Writer

When my aunt told me she had inoperable cancer, I went through the first stages of grief—denial and anger—in a few hours. Then I hit the bargaining stage for the next year and a half.

At first, I expected her healing before our long-anticipated trip to Chincoteague Island. When it didn’t happen, knowing I needed to keep hope alive for us both, I began writing her a letter every day. Remembering her letters from college to me as a child, I included funny happenings from home, quotes from books we loved and prayers for healing.

When nothing slowed the disease, I joined her care team, taking turns staying with her. Still, I mailed the letters. During her final week, we lay on her bed while watching a movie, aptly titled The Letter Writer. My aunt teared up as I knew she would, and several days later, she left us.

I waited for the next stage of grief—depression. While I’d cried much during those final weeks, raging at the horrors of cancer, I didn’t cry after her death. Instead, I wrote letters. I became a letter writer as in the movie, sending notes to those who needed the encouragement my aunt no longer needed. In my way, it honored her legacy and enabled me to be a kind of caregiver to many others, as it still does today.