After my grandmother passed away, her phone wouldn’t stop lighting up.
Pharmacy alerts. Spam calls. Missed delivery notifications. Messages from people who hadn’t heard yet. Every buzz felt like a small resurrection, and every glow of the screen made my chest tighten. I couldn’t bring myself to shut it off. Turning it off felt like erasing her twice—first her body, then her echo.
Weeks went by like that. The phone stayed on my nightstand, face down, humming softly into the night. One evening, worn down and hollow, I finally picked it up and opened the last unread text.
It was from me.
Sent months earlier.
“Can I call you later?”
There was nothing beneath it. Just that single line, suspended there. I remembered sending it—rushing out the door, telling myself I’d call after dinner, after work, after life slowed down. It never did.
She never replied.
I carried that guilt like a stone in my pocket until the day I went to her apartment to return the phone. The place still smelled of lavender cleaner and toast. I packed slowly, touching each item as if it might vanish if I didn’t.
That was when I noticed the drafts folder.
There was only one message saved. No recipient. Just words.
“If you’re tired, don’t apologize. Rest is not failure.”
I sat on the edge of her bed and stared at the screen until the letters blurred. Later, I asked my mom about it, my voice trembling.
She let out a quiet sigh. “After your grandfather died, your grandma started writing messages to herself,” she said. “Things she wished someone had told her. She kept them in drafts because she said, ‘Someday someone might need the words.’”
She never sent that message.
But I read it exactly when I needed it.
That night, I finally turned her phone off. The screen went dark, and the room felt quieter—but not emptier. The words stayed with me.
Months later, when my dad began losing his strength and apologizing for needing help, I wrote the sentence down and left it on his bedside table.
“If you’re tired, don’t apologize. Rest is not failure.”
He read it. He didn’t say a word. He just reached for my hand.
Some messages don’t need a sender or a reply.
They arrive when they’re meant to.