The handwriting was large and uneven.
Some words were misspelled.
Others were crossed out and written again.
I began reading.
Dear Daddy,
When you are sad, you can hug Mr. Buttons, but you have to give him back because he is mine.
I laughed through tears.
Then I kept reading.
I know you get scared when I am sick. I get scared too. But I like when you sit with me even when you don't know what to say.
My vision blurred.
I wiped my face.
The next lines nearly stopped my heart.
If another kid is sick and doesn't have somebody to sit with, maybe you can sit with them. You are really good at holding hands because yours are big.
I covered my mouth.
For eight years, I'd believed there was nothing I could do with the love I'd lost.
Now I was holding a letter from my daughter asking me to give some of that love to another frightened child.
I continued reading.
Don't be sad forever, Daddy. You can be sad sometimes. But you have to laugh too because your laugh is funny.
At the bottom, she had drawn a large motorcycle carrying three small stick figures.
One was labeled Daddy.
Another was labeled Sarah.
The third had no name.
Beneath the picture, she'd written:
There is room for one more.
I folded the letter against my chest.
Then I broke down.
I cried harder than I had in years.
Not because the words brought Sarah back.
They didn't.
Not because they erased the pain of losing her.
Nothing could do that.
I cried because the daughter I'd spent eight years grieving had somehow understood something I was only now beginning to learn.
Love didn't have to end where a life ended.
It could keep moving.
It could reach another child.
It could become a chair beside a hospital bed, a repaired washing machine, a stupid motorcycle horn, or an enormous tattooed hand wrapped around five tiny fingers.
I looked toward Sarah's photograph.
Then I whispered, “I'm trying, sweetheart.”
I pressed the letter against my heart.
“I'm finally trying.”
The next morning, I called Ron.
He answered before the second ring.
“What's wrong?”
“Nothing.”
He hesitated.
“You sure?”
I looked toward Sarah's letter.
“Yeah.”
For a moment, I couldn't speak.
Then I told him what I'd found.
Ron listened without interrupting.
When I reached the final line, his breathing changed.
There is room for one more.
He didn't say anything for nearly a minute.
Then he cleared his throat.
“Brother?”
“Yeah?”
“That little girl was smarter than all of us.”