Three days before my wife died, she grabbed my hand and said, “Seek your first love… and please forgive me.” After 36 years of marriage, I was not prepared to discover what I had done

“But as the end approaches, he could no longer carry it.

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I looked down at the envelope.

Why didn’t she tell me herself?

“Because I was afraid you’d spend your last days looking at her differently.

That hurt me more than I expected.

Susan continued.

“He said something else, too.

I waited.

“He said if you came looking for me, I should give you that letter. And then I had to let you decide what to do with the truth.

I opened it.

Robert:

If you’re reading this, it means you found Susan.

That means I’m not there anymore.

And it means that the truth is finally where it always must have been: with you.

He was young.

I was scared.

And I loved you so much that when Susan showed up at our door, I panicked.

I knew you never stopped loving her completely.

So I lied.

I told her you didn’t want her.

I kept his letter.

And I spent almost forty years repenting of it.

There’s no excuse for what I did.

But please believe this: every day I loved you it was real.

Our kids were real.

Our home was real.

Every laugh, every ordinary morning, every time I held your hand because I was grateful that you were by my side… all that was real.

I stole a choice from you.