I stared at the unfamiliar address for a long time.
Until that morning, I had believed the plane crash had taken my daughter without warning.
Now I was beginning to realize that Darla had been preparing for her death long before she ever boarded that plane.
THE SECRET MY DAUGHTER TOOK TO HER GRAVE
The address in Darla’s letter took me two hours away to a modest house on a quiet street. A man in his late thirties answered the door, and when I introduced myself as Darla’s mother, his expression shifted from confusion to recognition.
“My name is Carolyn. I received a package from my daughter with this address inside.”
“Carolyn? Yes. Please come in. I’ve been expecting you.”
His name was William, and he told me he had been Darla’s doctor. I expected him to explain something about the children or the strange collection of milestone gifts, but what he told me instead made the room suddenly feel too small.
“Your daughter was diagnosed with stage four cancer about a year ago. It was aggressive. She was told she had less than a year.”
I stared at him in disbelief. Darla had never told me she was sick. She had continued raising four children, planning birthdays, making calls, and living as though she still had time.
“Why didn’t she tell me?”
“She wanted to. But she said you had already survived too much. She didn’t want you watching her disappear.”
William explained that Darla had spent months purchasing gifts for every milestone she expected to miss. She had arranged for the enormous package to arrive shortly before Lily’s birthday because she believed I would be the one person who could give those pieces of her back to the children at the right moments.
Then he handed me a small box containing a delicate gold locket. When I opened it, I found a photograph of the four children wrapped around me during a summer trip to the lake, a picture Darla had taken herself and chosen as something she wanted me to keep after she was gone.
