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One Last Birthday Card

She longed for one more expression of affection from her late husband, but how could that come to pass?

A woman reads a birthday card

One February afternoon I got the notion to clean out my car. Maybe that would take my mind off some wishful thinking I was having about my recently deceased husband.

Fred and I were happily married for 49 years, and he barely ever said he loved me out loud. “You know I’m not into all that mushy stuff,” he used to say.

Even his cards on my February birthday were short and to the point. So why, in the weeks leading up to the first birthday I’d celebrate without him, did I long to get a card from him?

You’ve got a job to do, I reminded myself. Leaning into the front seat of my Toyota, I pulled a bunch of old papers out of the glove box. One was a pink envelope with my name on it—written in Fred’s hand.

I slid into the passenger seat and pulled out the card. The outside was embossed with flowers. I ran my hand over the bouquet and opened the card. Fred’s handwriting filled the inside of what must have started out blank.

“I don’t say what’s in my heart a lot, at least not as often as I should…but especially on your birthday you deserve to know that you are the love of my life—always.”

The message was dated 2007, the year I’d gotten the car for my birthday. Fred must have slipped it in the glove box and forgotten all about it. I always knew Fred loved me. But it was nice to “hear” him say it (in a very mushy way) just one more time.

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