Her Final Words
The last entry, written just months before she died, was frail, her handwriting shaky. She confessed she wanted to reach out but feared I would never listen. She hoped, someday, I might forgive her—not for what she had done, but for what she hadn’t been able to say. She left the journal “in the only place she knew I might eventually find it,” trusting that time would uncover the truth.
Reading her words, years of resentment began to loosen, replaced by a grief I had never allowed myself to feel. The room, filled with her belongings and memories we’d lost, felt unbearably still.
A Doorway to Healing
I closed the journal gently, the ribbon soft in my hands. For the first time in a decade, I saw my sister not as the villain in my story, but as someone who, in her own flawed way, had been trying to protect me.
I whispered an apology into the quiet, wishing she could hear it. The past could not be undone, but the truth offered something I hadn’t expected: a doorway to compassion, understanding, and maybe, one day, healing.
As I placed the journal back in the box, I realized I was finally ready to step through it.