The day after my dad’s funeral, a mysterious package arrived at our door — addressed to me, from him. What I found inside pulled me out of grief and into something far more powerful than goodbye.
I’m a 21-year-old female in college. And for most of my life, I thought I was the “lucky” kind of unlucky. But when I received my dad’s final gift for me, his loving words left me certain that I wasn’t unlucky at all.
I’m a 21-year-old
female in college.
My parents were high-school sweethearts. They were basically still children when they discovered they were having me. Sadly, my mom died giving birth to me.
Like… the second I entered the world, she left it.
My dad, Jason, was 17 when I was born. He had no savings, no worthwhile family support, and zero clue how to raise a baby!
…was 17 when I was born.
But he never ran or handed me off. He stayed and raised me alone.
My dad never treated me like a burden. He always said I was his reason to stay grounded.
He didn’t date or outsource the hard parts. He didn’t drink to numb anything; he just… loved me. He worked nights at a gas station so he could be with me during the day.
He also took community college classes part-time, and somehow made a world for us that felt safe even when it was falling apart behind the scenes.
He stayed and
raised me alone.
He was the type of father who learned how to braid my hair from YouTube. He kept extra cash in my backpack “just in case,” and showed up to everything — even when he was exhausted!
We were close in a way that made people jealous. I’d text him when I was having a panic attack over finals, and he’d reply with a meme and a “breathe, baby girl.”
He would send me voice memos of him singing badly in the car just to make me laugh!
We were close
in a way that made
people jealous.
My dad was the first person I called with news, bad or good.
When I’d come home from college for holidays, he’d pretend not to tear up. We also had these little rituals — like hot cocoa every first snow, “Die Hard” and “Home Alone” marathons in December, and midnight pancakes when one of us couldn’t sleep.
I thought I had more time.
I thought I had more time.
He started getting tired a few months before everything happened. I noticed him rubbing his chest sometimes or breathing heavily after walking up the stairs. I begged him to see a doctor.
He brushed it off as he always did. “I’m just getting old, kiddo,” he’d say with a smile. “I’ve earned this belly and these creaks.”
But he wasn’t old. He was 38.
He was 38.
A few days before Christmas, I came home early from campus. I walked into the kitchen to see him slumped on the floor. A cup of tea spilled beside him. His eyes were open, but vacant.
And just like that… he was gone.
Massive heart attack, the doctors said. It was one of those “movie scene” kinds that are sudden and final.
Everything after that blurred together. The hospital, a nurse holding my hand, and the distant relatives who showed up at the funeral with casseroles and pious advice.
His eyes were open,
but vacant.
The church was filled with poinsettias and echoes.
And the day after the funeral… was my birthday.
I woke up in our little two-bedroom house, where every wall and corner whispered his name.
His slippers were still by the door. His jacket was still hanging on the hook. And there was a scent of cinnamon and pine because he insisted on putting up the tree before finals, so I’d come home to “cozy vibes.”
And the day after the funeral…
was my birthday.
I sat on the couch with a blanket he had bought me the previous year. I was numb, dissociated. I didn’t even cry. I just sat there, blinking, like this was all a glitch in the universe.
His death didn’t feel real. Like any second, I’d hear him in the kitchen, humming off-key.
Then the doorbell rang.
I flinched. No one was supposed to come. I hadn’t answered texts, and I hadn’t posted anything. The world didn’t exist outside that living room.
I didn’t even cry.
I almost didn’t open the door. But whoever was out there wouldn’t quit ringing the bell.
When I reluctantly opened the door, a delivery guy stood on the porch with a small brown package.
He looked bored. “Delivery for… Rachel?” he said, glancing at the label.
I nodded, confused.
When I saw the words on the label, I swear my whole body froze! My stomach dropped so hard I had to grab the doorframe!
Written there — in block letters, clear as day — was:
FROM DAD.
“Delivery for… Rachel?”
I didn’t understand. I genuinely thought my brain was playing a cruel joke. Like, maybe grief could make you hallucinate. I stared at the box as if it might explode!
My fingers shook as I signed for it. The delivery guy left without a second glance, like he hadn’t just handed me a live wire!
I carried the box inside as if it were fragile, like it might vanish if I blinked.
I sat right there on the floor, back against the wall, staring at it for what felt like forever.
My heart pounded so loudly it drowned out every thought.
I didn’t understand.
Then I tore the box open.
“Oh my God!” I said out loud, barely believing what I was seeing.
Inside was a single VHS tape.
There was no letter and no explanation. Just my name in his handwriting across the label, all caps like he always did when he was trying to be neat.
I let out a dry, cracked laugh. It sounded more like a sob. Who even owns a VCR anymore?
“Oh my God!”
I tore through the house like I was being chased!
I went through every drawer, cabinet, closet, and the basement. I couldn’t breathe. I was frantic. Then I remembered the attic.
It was the place he called “the museum.” It held everything from my baby booties to old tax forms.
I pulled the ladder down and climbed into the dusty space, blinking away cobwebs and old insulation.
After shoving aside boxes labeled “Christmas” and “Rachel’s drawings (don’t toss!),” I found it.
I couldn’t breathe.
It was a beat-up VCR tucked behind an old pack-and-play crib.
I carried it down as if it were a sacred relic. It took forever to hook it up. The cords barely fit, but eventually, the blue screen popped up. Static.
I slid the tape in.
A flicker, then a click. And then — there he was!
My dad! But not the version I’d just buried. This was a younger Jason. He had messy hair and dark circles under his eyes. He was sitting on our old plaid couch with baby me in his lap, wearing a red onesie and chewing on a plastic ring.
I slid the tape in.
My dad looked nervous. Then he looked at the camera and smiled.
“Hey, peanut,” he said softly.
The lump in my throat was instantaneous!
“I don’t know when you’ll see this. I don’t know who you’ll be when you do. But I wanted to give you something… permanent. Something the world can’t take away.”
He took a breath. You could tell he was trying not to cry.
He took a breath.
“You won’t remember your mom. You couldn’t. But I do. She was brave, fierce, and funny in a way that made you want to be funnier just to keep up. She made me promise the night you were born that I would give you a good life. That I would love you enough for the both of us.”
He paused, looked down at me as a baby. I was grabbing his hoodie string and giggling.
“I’ve made mistakes, peanut. And I’ll probably make more. But loving you? That’s the one thing I’ve never messed up.”
Then he looked straight into the lens again.
“I’ve made mistakes, peanut.”
And then — this part destroyed me — he said:
“If you’re watching this, it means time did what time does. And I can’t be there right now. But I need you to hear this. You are the best thing that ever happened to me. You teach me how to be strong without being hard. You make me laugh when life is cruel. You give me a reason to wake up when I don’t think I have one.”
Tears rolled down my face. I didn’t even notice at first.
Tears rolled down
my face.
“I hope you know that you never had to be perfect for me to love you. I hope you know that when life hurts — and it will — it doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong. You’re allowed to fall apart. You’re allowed to feel everything. Just don’t ever stop coming back to yourself.”
He chuckled then, rubbing his eyes.
“You fall asleep on my chest while I watch late-night reruns. I whisper all my fears to the ceiling, hoping I am getting it right. But I think… maybe I’ll do okay. Because if you’re seeing this, it means you’re still here. Still growing. Still becoming whoever you’re meant to be.”
He chuckled then,
rubbing his eyes.
He reached off-screen and pulled out a tiny party hat. He set it gently on my head.
And then he did something I didn’t expect. He looked straight into the camera and said:
“Happy birthday, sweetheart. Merry Christmas. I love you more than every star, sunrise, and every dumb song we ever danced to in the kitchen.”
Then he leaned in and kissed the screen.
“I’m here. Always!”
The screen went blue.
“I’m here. Always!”
And I sat in the quiet, holding the silence as if it were glass.
I didn’t move for a long time.
The screen was blank, humming gently. The blue light cast a weird glow across the room, and for a second, I forgot what year it was. It could have been 2005 or 2026. Time didn’t feel real anymore.
I touched the VHS tape as if it might burn me.
Time didn’t feel
real anymore.
I stood up. I walked back to the kitchen. My dad’s mug — the one with the chipped rim and the words “World’s Okayest Dad” — was still in the sink. I washed it, dried it, and placed it on the counter like a little shrine.
Then I went back to the living room and rewound the tape.
I watched it again.
This time, I let myself cry so hard my chest hurt. Not because I was broken, but because something about his voice filled the cracks like glue. He wasn’t just speaking to me. He was anchoring me.
I watched it again.
After the second viewing, I curled up on the couch in his flannel hoodie and just sat in the quiet. The kind of quiet that feels earned. The kind that lets you breathe.
Over the next few days, I found myself watching that tape every morning as if it were a ritual.
I would wake up in that quiet house and press play before brushing my teeth. My dad’s voice became my alarm clock. My reminder.
The kind that
lets you breathe.
Sometimes, I would whisper back to the screen as if he could hear me.
“I miss you too.”
“I’m trying. I swear.”
“Thank you.”
Later that night, I replayed the tape for the fourth time that week. And something shifted. I wasn’t just watching it to grieve anymore. I was watching it to remember. To remind myself that I came from something strong. Someone who chose love, over and over, no matter how scared he was.
“I’m trying. I swear.”
In the following weeks, I started packing up the house. Not to sell it. I wasn’t ready for that. But to reorganize. To make it feel like a place where healing could live.
I found an old scrapbook my dad had made. It had pictures of me with food all over my face, and tickets to the zoo. My handprint in paint with “AGE 3!” scribbled in the corner was also there, and some sticky notes with his handwriting.
Not to sell it.
The notes read:
“First tooth!! You screamed like a warrior.”
“Lost her first race. Got back up. That’s my girl!”
“Today she told me I’m her best friend. I cried in the pantry.”
I spent hours reading every page, breathing him in like oxygen.
“I cried in the pantry.”
A few days later, I was having some cocoa, like Dad and I always used to.
I realized that grief doesn’t go away. It changes shape. It settles into the corners of your life and sometimes jumps out when you least expect it.
Like when I hear a song he loved, or when I see a dad helping his daughter tie her shoes.
But I’m not scared of it anymore.
Because now, when it shows up, I have something to hold on to.
That tape.
His voice.
The way he said, “I’m here. Always!”
It changes shape.
I still don’t understand how he knew I’d need it so badly. Perhaps he didn’t; maybe it was luck. Or divine timing, or just the way love echoes across years.
But it changed me.
On his birthday, I replayed the tape. This time, I didn’t cry. I just watched quietly with a smile.
When it ended, I whispered, “Happy birthday to you, Dad.”
And in my head, I heard his voice answer, “Merry Christmas, baby girl. I’m proud of you.”
This time,
I didn’t cry.
And for the first time since his death, I believed it.
Because the people we love don’t vanish.
They leave behind traces.
A tape. A label. A blanket that smells like home.
And a voice reminding us that even when it hurts, we’re never truly alone.
They leave behind traces.
