A shared universe › A letter to someone who has died · Español
Writing a letter to someone who has died lets you say what stayed unsaid: thank them, tell them about now, ask for forgiveness or offer it. Below you can write it with a few questions to guide you, and the letter stays only on your device, where nobody else can read it.
Because grief is full of sentences that never got said. Sometimes it was the hurry of the last days, sometimes the death came without warning, sometimes there were years of distance and pride in between. Those sentences don’t go away. They come back at night, in the car, when a song plays.
Putting them on paper doesn’t change what happened, but it gives them somewhere to go. Many people find that, after writing, they think about the person with a little more peace and a little less of that knot of things left pending. And there is something else: when you write to them, you speak to them in the second person again. You say “you”. For a while, the bond is present tense.
In 1986 the psychologist James W. Pennebaker and Sandra Beall asked a group of university students to write for 15 minutes on four consecutive evenings about the most upsetting experience of their lives, while others wrote about trivial topics. Those who wrote about both the facts and their feelings felt worse right after writing, but visited the campus health centre less often over the following six months. The authors themselves described their findings as preliminary.
Many studies followed. In 1997 Pennebaker summarised them: writing about emotional experiences was linked to improvements in physical and mental health, and what seemed to matter most was not just letting off steam but finding words that help you understand what happened. A large review in 2006 by Joanne Frattaroli, which gathered 146 studies, confirmed a positive effect, but a small one.
So it is worth being honest: writing is not a treatment and it doesn’t work for everyone. The first few times it may stir things up and leave you sadder for a while, as it did in the first study. If writing makes you feel much worse, or every attempt leaves you shaken, stop. You can come back to it another day, or never, and talk to someone instead.
The questions are only there to help. Skip any that don’t fit your story. The letter saves itself as you type, on this device only, so you can close the page and carry on another day from where you left off.
What you write here is not sent to any server and nobody reads it: it stays only on this device, in this browser, until you delete it.
Some people keep it and read it again on the anniversary, to see how much has changed. Others print it and put it in a drawer, or in a book they loved. Some read it aloud at the grave, or by the sea, or in the room that was theirs. Some burn it, or tear it up and let the wind take it. And some delete it, because writing was enough.
Some people choose a small ritual to go with it: lighting a candle while they read it, playing a song that was theirs, or reading it with a brother or a sister who also wrote one. Others prefer that it stays completely private. There is no wrong choice, and you don’t have to decide today.
All of these are fine. If you print it or download it, keep in mind that the copy is then outside this browser and anyone who finds it could read it. If you delete it, it is gone from this device for good.
You may also want to keep writing to them now and then: on their birthday, at Christmas, when something happens that you would have told them first. Over time, those letters become a record of a bond that carries on.
The letter is only for you. But if there is one sentence you’d like to say where others can keep you company, you can light a star for them. On compartiendo.org, tap “Light your star”, choose “What weighs on me” or “What I’m grateful for”, and under who it shines for, choose someone who is gone. Write without names, up to 280 characters. It shines for seven days. If you are looking for words, there are messages for a loved one in heaven and a page about staying connected to someone who has gone.