I finally opened that box on an ordinary Tuesday, a few years after my mother passed.
It was an old shoebox, soft at the corners, packed with letters and cards in her handwriting (that looping cursive nobody teaches anymore). Birthday cards, long letters, little notes she’d tucked into packages over the years.
For a long time, I couldn’t make myself touch it. Opening it meant hearing her voice again, in a way, and I wasn’t ready for that. So the box stayed on the shelf, and I left it alone.
Getting rid of it was never an option. Throwing away her handwriting felt unthinkable, like throwing away a piece of her.
But keeping it shut in the dark wasn’t honoring her either. It was mostly guilt, sitting in a box, gathering dust.
So that Tuesday, I made a cup of tea and sat down with it at last.
What I figured out that afternoon, about what to do with letters from someone who has passed, is everything I wish someone had told me sooner. If you have a box of your own, letters from a parent, cards from a friend, notes in handwriting you’d know anywhere, this is for you.
You’ve kept them because you don’t have the heart to throw them away. That’s not something to fix. It’s something to work with, gently and at your own pace.