The Letter

My sister and I were finally given permission last month to begin to go though my mom's clothing and personal items nearly five years after her death. We went through the closet in mid-August and today we met at my parent's home to complete the task and go through jewelry and some paperwork. This afternoon I opened the top drawer of her desk which had not been touched since she passed away. There were a couple of pictures that I saw immediately when I opened the drawer. Underneath the pictures, turned upside down was a letter addressed to my dad, me, my sister and my brother. I read the first couple of sentences and put it down. I looked at my dad and told him what I had found and commented out of frustration that I'm sure this was meant to be found long ago. It was a "last" letter, a "goodbye" letter, a love letter......
The letter was intended for all of us to read together once she was gone and now five years later it has been discovered. I am full of emotions..... My brother is living in Texas so he has not seen it yet. I am not going to write it out word for word or anything, but so many things that she wrote can be applied in lives of so many of our friends and family so I want to share the letter in a very condensed form.
She said first and foremost that she wants us to be happy. She wants us to stay active in Church and in our Bible Study groups. She wants us to be patient with each other and listen to each other. She hopes that we will document our family history in pictures and get together often as a family. She does not want us to hold grudges. She wants us to celebrate holidays and birthdays and make videos of these events. She wants us to be patient with our dad because she knows that this will be the most difficult for him. She wants us to put in writing who our kids will live with in the event that anything should happen to us. She wants us to have high expectations of our children, but fair expectations. She said that if the Lord allows her to that she will be watching over us. She says that she is lucky because she was given the time and opportunity to write to us before she died and that many people aren't lucky enough to be able to do that before they go. She said that the letter is typewritten because her handwriting is messy and that she would attempt to leave handwritten notes.... did she? I haven't found any yet, but I sure am hoping that she left some behind.
This was one of the most difficult days I have had in a long time. I can't help but think that there is a reason I didn't find that letter until today. Maybe I needed to hear her reminding me of all the things she wrote in that letter and if I would have found it five years ago, maybe it wouldn't have the impact on me that it did today.