When Marcus read Jonathan’s note out loud, it didn’t feel like a memory.
It felt like a hand on my shoulder.
“If my girls ever forget what kind of man I tried to be…”
I didn’t forget.
I just didn’t know where to look.
Now I did.
Right in front of me.
In Letty.
In the way she had seen someone hurting and moved toward it instead of away.
In the way she didn’t hesitate.
Didn’t calculate.
Didn’t ask if it was enough.
She just… gave.
The same way he would have.
Later, in the hallway, when I read his letter alone, it felt quieter—but somehow heavier.
“Let people love you.”
I hadn’t been doing that.
I had been surviving. Managing. Carrying everything like it was mine alone to hold.
Because when you lose someone like that, it feels safer to close the door behind them.
To make the world smaller so nothing else can be taken.
But standing in that office, surrounded by people who remembered him—not as a tragedy, but as a force—I understood something I hadn’t before.
Love doesn’t end.
It changes direction.
Outside, when I invited Jenna and Millie to dinner, it wasn’t just kindness.
It was a decision.
To not shrink.
To not isolate.
To not let grief turn my life into something small and guarded.
Jonathan had built something bigger than that.
And now it was my turn to keep it going.
