I Married a Homeless Man Who Had One Month Left to Live – But the Letter I Received After His Funeral Made the Blood Drain from My Face
“My arrangements were already handled. I knew somebody from hospice or the county would deal with the paperwork. I wasn’t going to disappear without a name.”
I stood so quickly my chair scraped backward.
“What did you do, Larry?”
“I wasn’t going to disappear without a name.”
There was nowhere for the anger to go.
He was dead.
I couldn’t call him.
Couldn’t demand an explanation.
Couldn’t even make him sit through the expression on my face.
I couldn’t call him.
I kept reading.
“If I gave you a problem you could solve, I knew you’d solve it.”
That was the line that hurt.
Because he was right.
I had spent two years offering Larry things.
Coffee.
Food.
Socks.
Phone numbers for shelters.
That was the line that hurt.
Once, when temperatures dropped below freezing, I’d spent half my lunch break calling around for an available bed.
Larry had thanked me every time.
I’d never considered that he might have learned exactly how to ask me for something.
Larry had thanked me every time.
At the bottom of the page he’d written:
“Before you decide what kind of jerk I was, go back to the courthouse where we got married. Ask for Margaret. Tell her you’re my wife.”
I nearly threw the letter away.
“Tell her you’re my wife.”
Instead, an hour later, I was standing in the courthouse lobby.
Couples filled the plastic chairs.
