I took letter upstairs to apartment to read it. I sat down at kitchen table, and inside envelope was a single sheet of note paper covered with elegant, spidery handwriting. I glanced at name on bottom but didn’t recognize it, then I went back to top and began to read —

“Thank you for all of your kind words to my sister, Hannah Paulson. I don’t know who you are, but you must have had a special, wonderful relationship with her. Unfortunately, Hannah died day before your letter arrived…”

I sat there for a few moments, stunned.

Hannah was dead? And she hadn’t read my letter?

You see, for some inexplicable reason, a few weeks before Christmas I was overcome by strongest feeling that I ought to write to our former neighbor and thank her for being so kind to me when I was a little girl. Although — longer I considered idea — more ridiculous it seemed to write to someone I hadn’t seen in about fifteen years just to say thank you for being nice to me when I was a kid. So, I kept telling myself I didn’t have to do it right now — that I could always do it “tomorrow.”

I knew my mother still occasionally exchanged letters with Hannah, and when I finally concluded nagging feeling was not going to go away, I called my mother in Wisconsin, got Hannah’s address, wrote a letter and sent it in a Christmas card. After I mailed envelope, I felt a certain sense of satisfaction, as if I had finally paid off an old debt.

Except that now Hannah was dead. And she hadn't read my letter.

As soon as shock wore off a little bit, I called my mother. And when I told her that Hannah had died, we both began to cry.

“All those years when I could have written, but I didn’t,” I said in a choked voice. “And now she’ll never know—"

I heard Mom heave a deep sigh. “Oh, sweetheart, of course Hannah knew. Besides, she enjoyed your visits as much as you enjoyed going to see her.”

Nothing my mother said made me feel any better. If only I had written a week earlier. Or even just a day…

Twenty years later, I still can’t help wishing that Hannah had been able to read my letter. She was one of best friends I've ever had, but I never told her what her kindness meant to a lonely little girl who had no one to play with.

Then again, maybe that was Hannah's greatest gift to me. Through my procrastination in writing one simple letter, I learned that I should never put off until tomorrow telling my dearest friends and loved ones how I feel about them. No one knows, after all, when there might not be any more tomorrows.

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