“You don’t have to open it today,” Dr. Rivers said gently.
But somehow, leaving it unopened felt even harder.
I looked at my husband’s handwriting again.
And suddenly, I was back on our porch.
Just two months earlier.
Mark was laughing about baby names.
Cecelia was kicking beneath my shirt.
We had been planning a future we thought we still had time to live.
None of us knew how quickly our remaining days would disappear.
I finally opened the envelope at home.
Inside was a handwritten letter.
There was also a copy of Mark’s signed donor authorization.
And contact information for the attorney who had helped him organize his estate.
I read the documents slowly.
Mark had thought about everything.
Our mortgage.
Our life insurance.
Our small investment account.
The money we had set aside for Cecelia’s future.
He had reviewed everything carefully because he didn’t want confusion after he was gone.
He didn’t want a court dispute.
He didn’t want anyone questioning whether his decision had been voluntary.
And he especially didn’t want anyone suggesting that I had pressured him into donating his organs.
But the letter contained something else.
Something he had apparently been worried about for weeks.
His mother, Violet, had strongly opposed his decision.
She had repeatedly tried to convince him not to become a donor.
She couldn’t accept the idea.
To her, donating his organs somehow felt like losing another part of her son.
Mark knew she was likely to blame someone.
And he worried that person would be me.
That’s why he had written:
“Protect my choice, not my reputation.”
I read the sentence again.
Then again.
He had asked me not to argue with Violet.
He knew her anger would come from grief.
