What people are saying
In their own words
These are the reasons people give for sitting down to write. Names are shortened and details kept vague, because the letters themselves are private and always will be.
“My daughter stopped going to church years ago. I have never known how to say what I believe without it turning into an argument. So I wrote it down — not to convince her, just to tell her what it means to me and that I will be thinking of her.”
Sarah R.
Tennessee
“Both of my kids walked away from the faith in college. I do not blame them. But if the day comes, I want them to have a letter from me — not a sermon, just a father explaining where he went and that he loved them the whole time.”
Marcus K.
Georgia
“I wrote to my sister. We have not spoken in four years. Some things are easier to put in a letter than to say out loud, and this way she will hear it when it matters most.”
Diane W.
Ohio
“My wife has never believed a word of it, and after thirty years I am not going to argue her into it. But if I am taken and she is not, I do not want the only thing waiting for her to be an empty house. Now there is a letter as well.”
Thomas H.
Texas
“My son calls it a fairy tale, and he says it kindly, which is somehow worse. I have stopped arguing with him. The letter is not an argument either — it is me telling him plainly what I believe has happened, that I am proud of him, and that I am waiting.”
Ruth A.
Michigan
“None of my grandchildren were raised in the church. That was my son's decision and I have made my peace with it. I wrote to each of them by name, so that if they wake one morning and I am not there, they have something from me explaining it instead of nothing at all.”
Gerald P.
Kansas
“My husband thinks I am gullible for believing this, and I have stopped trying to change his mind. But I could not go without telling him where I have gone and how I hope he will follow. Writing it was the gentlest way I could find to say it.”
Nadia F.
Florida
“My oldest friend does not believe, and I have never found a way to raise it that does not sound like a sales pitch. So I said it once, properly, in a letter he will only ever read if it turns out I was right.”
Caleb M.
North Carolina
“I am a widow with no children nearby. My neighbors have been kinder to me than most family, and not one of them shares my faith. If I am gone one morning with no explanation, I did not want them left guessing. The letter tells them where I went, and that their kindness was seen.”
Evelyn S.
Oregon
Write your own
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Every letter on this page started the same way. Someone sat down for a few minutes and said the thing they had been meaning to say. We hold it, sealed, for as long as it takes, and when the day comes we carry it to the person it was written for.
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