Today, I would finally open it.

I glanced at the clock: 5:15 AM. My alarm wouldn’t ring for another fifteen minutes, but sleep had eluded me most of the night. How could I rest when today marked both the tenth anniversary of my father’s death and the day I would hear from him one last time?

I sat up in bed and reached for the envelope, running my thumb across my name written in my father’s distinctive handwriting. “Eugenio,” it read, nothing more. Just my name in his strong, slanted script.

The memory of our last moments together still felt raw, despite the decade that had passed.

The hospital room had smelled of antiseptic and despair. The beeping of machines had provided a grim soundtrack to my father’s labored breathing. Cancer had ravaged his