A grieving widow discovered a collection of emotional letters left behind by her late husband with instructions for them to be read on birthdays and anniversaries.
Mitchell Whisenhunt was just 26 years old when he died on Saturday (October 18) from Marfan's Syndrome, a disorder that affects the heart valves and aorta, often leading to early death.
Soon after he died, his wife Ashley, 30, found 30 letters left behind for her and the couple's one-year-old daughter Bryn at their home in Longview, Texas.
In one of Mitchell's first letters, he wrote: "If this is being read, I have passed...In this grieving period for my wife, the last thing I want her to worry about is the coming cost of my funeral."
Ashley told KLTV that it felt surreal to discover the letters, each written for special occasions like an upcoming anniversary.
She said: "Honestly I thought he was going to come back in and read them to me I guess."
She added that the most special letters are addressed to their one-year-old daughter: "Her 2nd, 3rd, 4th birthday, and on the 16th he wrote 'Sweet 16' on the front, all the way up to her 18th birthday."
Ashley said she will wait to let her daughter open them on each special occasion.
The Whisenhunt family plans to hold a memorial service later this week and are fundraising on GoFundMe to pay for Mitchell's memorial costs.
Mitchell's letters are reminiscent of the novel and later movie P.S. I Love You, in which a young widow (played by Hilary Swank), helps grieve after the loss of her husband to a brain tumor with the letters he leaves behind.
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