• She gave me The Letter just as I was getting on the plane. I was leaving all I’d ever known to serve my country in a foreign land I knew nothing about, and the only things I were taking with me were some necessities and The Letter, her letter to me, to be read only in my darkest moment. I would hold to that. No matter how my heart broke as I gave her one last hug.

    The Letter went with me everywhere, and two months in, I still hadn’t needed to open it. Times were rough, but I wasn’t beaten yet. It wasn’t until I got a notice from her mother, written in that slant that was so similar to hers. The words stabbed me in the gut.

    “Dear, I am so sorry to have to let you know like this, but she wouldn’t have wanted me to wait until you got back. She’s dead, a car accident took her precious life from her. Just know that her last wishes will be followed, and you will receive several items of hers when you do return. Thank you for being the person you were to her.”

    With a feeling of absolute cold, I finally opened The Letter, the one she’d wanted me to read only when it was hopeless.

    “I know you’re reading this because you’ve lost hope. Because the pain is finally too great, and you have nothing else to live for. And you may not know it, but I love you. You are the person I live for, and my love of you is sometimes the only thing keeping me from giving up entirely. If you’ve ever known such a feeling as this, you wouldn’t give up, you would keep living, and loving, in hopes of someday being loved in return. If nothing else, let this be your love, to remember, and hope for, and someday, perhaps you can find in someone what I find in you.”

    The Letter was destroyed in a fire in our tent that very night. Perhaps it was fate, perhaps it wasn’t, but when I walked away without more than a burn over my heart, I knew it was her, watching over me, talking to me in the only way she could now. I did feel her love, and I loved her without her ever knowing. Her letter was the hardest thing I ever read, and the hardest thing I ever had to accept is that I never got to tell her. But now I live with purpose, I will live, and love, and remember her everyday, if only so when we are together someday, I can tell her. I loved her.