Love Letters From The Past

Have you ever thought about leaving notes, emails, or videos for your family after you are gone? Shortly after they diagnosed me with Alpha-1 (Genetic COPD), I started doing this.

Hearing that you only have a couple of years left before you pass or possibly have a lung transplant made me think. There is not enough time left for me to tell my husband, kids, and grandkids all that I want to say to them.

Saving memories for my family to later read

I first started with a big notebook, and each person had their section. For a while, I did that and then thought that if there was a fire or the notebook got misplaced, no one would know about everything that I had written.

I made them all an email account then and started writing emails. I wrote all the email addresses into that notebook but planned on giving all the information to a cousin of mine so she could let them all know the information as needed.

It has been over ten years since I started writing to them. I have been so fortunate that I have lived longer than I was told and still doing pretty well.

I still have sick lungs and am unwell compared to others, but I have stayed pretty stable with my lung function.

It has been quite a while since I last wrote to them, which made me think of this subject to do an article now. Everything that I wrote to them has come and passed, so I thought of letting them read what I have until now and start adding my grandkids to the emails.

In the past, I would write things to their parents to tell them, but they are all getting older now to where they could start reading them on their own or with a bit of help. I need to get busy and start writing more often than I have been, and I have gotten way behind.

Looking back on my life

I can't believe that I have lived through my kids' graduations, weddings, births of their children, etc., the things that I wrote to them about that I thought I'd miss out on. My grandkids are all in school now and trying different sports and activities that I love seeing them do.

I have missed out on some of the indoor things because of Covid, but hopefully, with the numbers going down, I may feel more comfortable going to those now while still wearing my mask and keeping a distance from others.

I am grateful that I have lived to see my kids come this far and hope and pray that I see all of my grandkids do all the same. I am so very fortunate!

Do any of you do the same or anything similar? What do you write to them about?

I would love to hear what you all do or some other great ideas you have so that your family has glorious memories to go back and look at whenever they are missing you and feel like they want to feel closer to you after you are gone.

My greatest wish is that they'll know and can read how much they all have meant to me and know how much joy they brought to my life, and it was because of them I have hung in there and fought to be there with them as long as I could.