The card

Today when I got to my dad's condo I noticed a card on the mantle. I thought someone had sent him a card for Father's Day (though I couldn't think of who would - my sister and I are spending the day with him on Sunday), or maybe to remember his and my mom's wedding anniversary (they would have been married 32 years today).

I went over to read the card, and I saw that it wasn't signed. Odd, but not unheard of. 

And then I read the card. It starts with "For the man I love" and ends with "Happy Fathers Day." 

I thought my dad had bought it for himself - my parents gave cards to each other on lots of occasions; it was kinda their thing, one of their ways of saying I love you. It would make sense for him to buy himself a card that my mom would have bought him for his first wedding anniversary, his first Father's Day without her. 

So I asked him where the card came from. And he said "it came from Mom."

He told me that a few weeks ago he was cleaning out my mom's desk drawer, and he found this card. She must have bought it before her stroke, almost two years ago. (Though that would put the buying in August, which is a little off season for a Father's Day card, so it may have been even earlier than that.) She liked it so much she kept it to give to him for the next Father's Day. But she (understandably) forgot about it, and he didn't find it until a few weeks ago, after she had died. 

So sitting on the mantle is my mom's last Father's Day and anniversary card to my dad. Sitting on the mantle is a card that expresses her love for him, even after she's gone. Even after she's passed away my mom is still finding ways to tell her husband of 32 years and the father of her children that she loves him.

The kind of love my parents had, that kind of commitment, doesn't disappear with death. And if you don't believe me just look at this card.