When my wife, Anna, died at twenty-seven, I struggled to imagine life without her. Our four-year-old son, Noah, gave me a reason to keep going, but I still kept Anna’s old phone beside my bed because I couldn’t bear to put it away.
Years later, the phone suddenly lit up with a message: “Trix, I’ll be home in 20 mins.” Trix was Anna’s private nickname for me. For a moment, I couldn’t breathe.
I soon learned it was a delayed message from the night she died while driving home. I knew there was an ordinary explanation, yet reading her words after so long brought me comfort. It felt like one last reminder that the love she gave Noah and me was still with us.