Dear Amy,
What do you give someone who’s about to start a new chapter of their life?
We’re no stranger to packing our lives into suitcases, ready to leave if needed at a moment’s notice. But somehow in the past five years I’ve forgotten how to live that way. I’ve accumulated so much stuff, maybe it’s from American consumerism, maybe it’s from the audacity of trying to settle down and start a life here. We didn’t bring much with us when we first came to the states, only some vague idea of the future and who we thought we were. From there we slowly collected things over the years – memories, experiences, all the knick-knacks and appliances that come with growing up. Eight years later I don’t know how I would fit all of this into the suitcases I used to, fit all of my thoughts into a love letter disguised as a gift note.
What do you give someone who’s already pared their life down these past weeks and months to only essentials in preparation for leaving? What could you possibly give them that they should take over the things they’ve thrown away? What should you give them that won’t be a burden to squeeze into suitcases packed to the brim?
It’s 5am on August 25th, 2025 before I head to the airport, and I’ve been crying for three hours, pacing this apartment you never got to visit. It’s 10am on Tuesday, August 26th and again on Wednesday, August 27th in this godforsaken heat and its still here. I’ve seen the grief coming now for months but it still hits hard like front teeth on pavement, unexpected. All at once, over and over, this feeling of loss.
You know, the life I imagined here always had you and everyone else in it because you have always been in my life. I imagined all of us meeting up year after year and growing old together. I imagined visiting your kids and watching them grow up, all the little things that get harder and less frequent with distance. Maybe I’m being dramatic. It’s not like I’m never seeing you again. God and government willing I’ll see you soon, maybe even next year to celebrate twenty(!) years of friendship. It’s really not the end of everything. But it is the end of something. For all the variables I’ve been trying to figure out about building and living my life, you were an invariable, set in stone, a given. For all my doubts about any and everything, your presence was effortlessly unquestionable. Every possible version of the life I wanted for myself had you, had us, all of us, in it. But like it always does, whether we want it to or not, change comes.
For all my sadness, there is also relief that you are getting out. I hope Germany will be kind to you, the kindest person I know. I have an endless respect and admiration for your character, your earnestness, your resilience and how you make the world a better, kinder, softer, gentler place. People seem to say that I am kind too, though I’ve always found it hard to believe. I really just try to be more like you, and the kindness they see is the part of you that I always try to carry with me, the same way I carry parts of everyone I love. I’m proud of the person I am and I’ve only become because I’ve known you, and know that everyone that has ever loved me has also loved a part of you. I thank God and the universe for your existence in the world and even more for your presence in my life. I hold that gratitude at the same time as my anger and frustration at what life has thrown your way. It takes bravery to be doing what you’re doing now, and I am filled with excitement for what comes next for you, all the peace you undoubtedly deserve. I just wish we lived in a world where the kind didn’t also have to be brave.
I love you and am going to miss you so much. I will miss you in the summer and miss you at Thanksgivings and I will miss all the parts of me and my home here that will leave with you. Life without you here just won’t be the same. But if anything we’ve learned how to keep going, that home is not a place or a thing but people and what we make it. So I promise to keep going, to make a life here we both would be proud of, a life that will always have a place for you. And I know you will do the same.
So what do you give someone who means the world to you? What do you give someone who deserves the world and more? What do you give someone who’s given you so much joy in your life? What do you give an old friend?
You give them a little bit of yourself and the world, in a small book of poetry and a handwritten note.
You give them a little piece of the home you’ve made together, your history, your rituals in a small bag of pink chocolate.
You do all anyone can really do. You say what you can and you give them all of your love.
All my love,
Harry
This letter was started in Seattle on August 25th, 2025, finished and written in Los Angeles on August 28th, 2025, delivered August 30th, 2025 tucked into a copy of Girl’s Guide to Leaving by Laura Villareal alongside a bag of Maeve Pink Bubbly chocolate truffles, and read on August 31st, 2025 on a flight from LAX to Berlin.
han maw aung - writing 