I decided to sell my wife’s car five months after she passed. But when I opened the glovebox to clean it… I found a secret that took my breath away…

And for those few quiet moments, I felt like she wasn’t completely gone. Sometimes I would cry in there. Other times, I’d sit in silence, staring out the windshield, thinking about nothing and everything all at once.

Then, when it felt like enough, I’d wipe my face, take a deep breath, and go back inside the house like nothing happened. But after six months, reality started sinking in. The car wasn’t being used.

It was just taking up space and slowly falling apart. And I realized that holding on to everything she left behind wouldn’t bring her back. It wouldn’t stop the grief from coming.

And it definitely wouldn’t help me heal. So I told myself, it’s time. I was going to clean it up, take some photos, and put up for sale on one of those local car listing sites.

That morning, I woke up early with a plan in mind. I grabbed a bucket, some soap, and a sponge. I started by washing the outside of the car.

If I were going to take photos to sell them, I figured it needed to at least look clean. I took my time with it, not rushing the process. After a while, I moved to the inside.

I started cleaning slowly, lifting the floor mats, dusting the dashboard. I opened the glove box, expecting maybe a few old receipts from gas stations or grocery stores, an owner’s manual, maybe some tissues, or a crumpled napkin or two. But as I go through the things there, underneath the things there, there was something else.

A small, slightly bent, worn-out journal. The edges were frayed, and the cover had faded, but I recognized it the moment I saw it. It was Nancy’s.

She’d had it even before we got married. I remembered seeing her scribble in it during quiet evenings, curled up on the couch, or sitting at the dining table with a cup of tea. I never really knew what she wrote in there, and I never asked.

That was her private space. Holding it now felt like finding a piece of her, frozen in time. I opened the journal, and the moment I saw her handwriting on the first page, it brought back so much memories.

I didn’t know what I would find in those pages, but I wanted to keep reading. I wanted to feel close to her again. At that point, I didn’t realize the weight of what I was about to uncover.

Back then, I never opened her journal. I respected her space. The first few pages were soft.

She was writing about her goals, the things she still wanted to do, places she hoped we’d visit together. Then there were pages filled with doubts. Self-questioning.

Wondering if she was enough. Wondering if she was doing the right things with her life. She wrote about her fears, too, things I never even knew bothered her.

Not just the big ones, like sickness or death, but small ones. Like not being able to make her parents proud. Or the fear of losing herself in marriage…