His father explained slowly. When my husband was six, his mother had been very ill, and she kept a green notebook of letters for her son, to be opened at different ages. After she passed, his father could not bear to read them aloud, so he hid the notebook and made a rule that it never be mentioned, because every mention reopened his grief. Over the years, the rule outlived its reason.

He had kept the notebook in a cedar box in his closet, unopened by anyone. He drove over that same afternoon, shaking, and placed it in my husband’s hands at our kitchen table. The first letter was dated for his seventh birthday. My husband read it silently, then passed it to me, and I cried too. It was a mother’s gentle note, asking her little boy to be brave, kind, and never ashamed to feel things.

My husband read one letter each evening for three weeks. He tore up the printed list and wrote a new one with our son, with rules like “Hugs are always allowed” and “Questions are always welcome.” His father moved closer and now has dinner with us every Sunday. We keep the green notebook on the living room shelf, and our son knows he can ask about it anytime. It is the only rule in our house that we changed.