"Letters to the Dead"

Letters to the Dead

I found the box on the top shelf of Nana’s closet, tucked behind a folded quilt and a stack of old sheet music. The cardboard was soft with age, the edges frayed like something that had been waiting too long to be found.

We were cleaning out her house. She had passed three weeks earlier, a quiet departure in her sleep at 87. She always said she wanted to go like closing a book at the end of a long day, and somehow, she did.

The box was labeled “To Be Burned.” In black marker. Underlined. Twice.

Of course, I opened it.

Inside, I found letters—dozens of them—neatly stacked, tied with a blue ribbon that had long since lost its sheen. The first was dated June 3, 1954. The last: October 12, 1961. I recognized her handwriting instantly: small, graceful loops with a soft slant, like each word was leaning into the next.

They were all addressed to “J.M.” No last name. No return address. Just those two initials and words that spilled like quiet confessions.

“You would’ve loved the orchard this spring. The blossoms were heavy and sweet, and for a moment I almost imagined you walking beneath them again.”

“Your absence is a knot I cannot untie. Some nights, I still hear your voice behind me when I’m alone in the garden.”

“I married Robert today. You knew I would, eventually. He’s kind. Steady. But I still dream of you.”

I kept reading, letter after letter, each revealing a piece of a story I had never been told. A story of love—not with my grandfather, Robert—but with someone else. Someone who vanished.

That night, I sat on the floor of her living room with the letters scattered around me like leaves in a storm. I read until the sun came up, unable to stop.

The letters painted a picture of a young woman in love during a time when love like hers had to be kept quiet. A man named Jacob. A jazz pianist with eyes like “storm clouds over water.” They had met in 1952, at a speakeasy on the edge of town. She was nineteen. He was twenty-four.

They were inseparable for nearly a year. She wrote about picnics near the river, dancing in bare feet, reading poetry by candlelight, hiding from her father when he came home early.

And then—without warning—Jacob disappeared.

She wrote letter after letter to him, even after marrying my grandfather. The tone of the letters shifted from hope to heartbreak, then to acceptance.

But in one of the final letters, dated 1961, she wrote:

“I found out this morning. He died that winter. A construction accident. I never knew. He had moved out west to ‘make a name for himself,’ just like he promised. And now he’s gone. Just like that.”

I had never heard of Jacob. Never heard of Nana loving anyone other than Grandpa. Never suspected she carried this secret for decades.

The next day, I visited my mother. I brought the letters.

She read them in silence. Her lips were tight, her fingers trembling slightly.

When she finally looked up, her voice was soft. “I always wondered why she planted those lilies every year. Jacob’s favorite flower, maybe?” Then, after a pause: “She once told me she had a secret she’d take to the grave. I didn’t think she meant this.”

There was sadness in her voice, but no anger. Only awe. A kind of quiet reverence.

“She loved deeply,” I said.

“She did,” my mother agreed. “More than we ever knew.”

Later that week, I returned to Nana’s house one last time. I took the letters with me. I didn’t burn them.

Instead, I brought them to the orchard she’d always loved. The blossoms were starting to bloom again, the air thick with the scent of new life.

I dug a small hole beneath the oldest tree, wrapped the letters in cloth, and buried them there—beneath roots that had known her since youth.

Some stories don’t belong in fire.

Some secrets don’t want to be erased.

They want to rest, quietly, beneath the soil, becoming part of the earth that fed them.

Author’s Note:

Love doesn’t always arrive when it’s convenient or last in the ways we hope. But even the love that goes unspoken, unanswered, or left in ink rather than voice—it shapes us. And sometimes, it leaves letters behind, waiting for someone to read.