The house was quiet.
But no longer painfully empty.
Photographs filled the hallway.
Ethan's old baseball glove rested on a shelf.
The little notebook remained in my bedside drawer.
And every Christmas, Caleb and Rachel visited.
Sometimes they brought their children.
Sometimes they stayed late.
Sometimes we laughed so hard over old stories that we forgot to be sad for a few minutes.
I never stopped missing Ethan.
Not once.
But I learned that grief could share a room with happiness.
That laughter wasn't betrayal.
And that remembering someone didn't require us to remain frozen on the day we lost them.
One evening, I found the funeral program tucked inside an old book.
I unfolded it carefully.
A photograph of Ethan smiled back at me.
Then a small piece of paper slipped out.
It was a copy of his letter to Caleb.
I'd read it countless times.
But one sentence still stopped me.
