The doorbell startled me so badly I froze. I wasn’t expecting anyone. Everyone I loved had already shown up, cried with me, and gone back to their lives. I opened the door to find a delivery driver holding a small, worn cardboard box. My name was written on it in handwriting I knew better than my own.
I didn’t cry right away. I just stared.
Inside, the house felt too quiet. I sat on the floor and opened the box with shaking hands. On top was a folded note.
Happy Birthday, kiddo.
If you’re reading this, I couldn’t stay long enough to say it out loud.
My chest tightened.
Under the note was a key and a slim envelope. The envelope held bank documents and a letter explaining that he’d set up an account for me when I was born. Every spare dollar. Overtime pay. Side jobs. Money he pretended didn’t exist whenever I worried about bills. Enough to pay for the rest of my schooling. Enough that I didn’t have to panic about surviving without him.
But that wasn’t what broke me.
At the bottom of the box was an old USB drive, taped to a photo of us at the beach — me missing my front teeth, him squinting into the sun. The USB was labeled: For the days you need me.
I plugged it in.
There were videos. Dozens of them. My dad sitting at the kitchen table, sometimes laughing, sometimes serious. Messages for my future birthdays. For my graduation. For the day I’d feel like I was failing. For the day I’d fall in love. One titled simply: When you miss me.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t walk you through everything,” he said in one video, voice steady. “But you’re stronger than you think. You always have been. I just got to be your backup for a while.”
I cried then. Ugly, gasping sobs. Not because he was gone — but because even in leaving, he made sure I was held.
That night, I lit a candle and played the last video. He smiled softly.
“Happy birthday,” he said. “I love you. Always. And I’m so proud of you.”
For the first time since he died, I believed I would be okay.
