The letter you've been meaning to write

I kept your voicemail for eleven months. Not to listen to it. Just to know it was there, the way you keep a coat on the hook.

People said it gets easier. That's not the part I've noticed. The part I've noticed is that grief keeps its own hours. Some days you're a room away. Some days you're close enough that I almost set a place for you at the table.

I'm not writing to apologize. There's nothing to apologize for. I'm writing because I said a lot of things to you while you were here, and I never once said: I'm glad you existed. I'd do all of it again, even the hard parts, for the chance to know you.

This letter isn't a question. I don't need an answer. It's the thing I should have said out loud, said now, so it stops being carried wrong.

If there's a next time, I'll say it on an ordinary Tuesday, when nothing is wrong, so you can hear it without the ceremony.

You were here. I noticed. That's the whole letter.

P.S. I write letters like this one on request. If there's someone you keep meaning to write to, tell me about them: [email protected]