I love the way you blink awake in the mornings. It is incredible and absolutely adorable. The way you smile up at me so honestly and just say “Hi” is so gentle, natural, and unassuming I can barely contain my joy. I do my best though and just smile as I say “I love you.” I do not say this lightly, or out of any feeling of obligation. It is truly how I feel and these are the only words that succinctly express that to you, although even then they only scratch the surface.
The gentle press of your lips against mine provides further, yet unnecessary, proof that this is how I need to spend the rest of my life: by your side, in the embrace of your eyes, your lips, and your arms. Hearing your heartbeat as I am wrapped up inside of you reminds me all the more of how hopeless I was before you.
The countless nights of insomnia that left me empty and lost beneath the moonlight vanished the first time I heard your voice all those years ago. When I first met your eyes I felt them pierce my soul in a way I’d never thought to imagine as possible and I knew immediately that you were what I was missing in my life. I knew I had found my better half.
People said we married too fast, that we hadn’t known each other long enough, but they were wrong. The truth is I didn’t ask you nearly soon enough. Looking back I can’t believe how foolish I had been to wait. I lost one hundred forty mornings and an infinite number of moments with you and that will always be my greatest and deepest felt regret.
Over the years we shared you made me the happiest man the happiest conscious being in the entire known universe and beyond. And so now as I say goodbye to you my dear I will tell you again, although not for the last time, that I love you. I will always love you. I will never forget a single moment, not one word, smile, or look you ever gave to me. They will be forever cherished.
Yes I have been and will continue breathing in your absence but I will never truly live without you. It is not possible. You were, are, and will always be my everything.
This letter was found on an elderly man’s nightstand the morning of his wife’s funeral. They were married over sixty years. He had died in his sleep.