About the Author: Andris A. Baltins

These 39 stories evolved from a homework assignment of sorts.

After Nancy's death, the facilitator in one of my grief groups suggested that each participant write a letter—a "grief letter"—to the deceased. The letter, said the facilitator, was intended to finish "unfinished business."

I didn't think there was much unfinished business between Nancy and me. I'd known Nancy since we were eight years old at Kenwood Grade School in Minneapolis. Nancy claimed she already knew in third grade that we were destined to spend our lives together. We were married shortly after I graduated from Yale, she from Smith College, while I was in law school, and she at the school of social work, at the University of Minnesota.

Since Nancy was a therapist and a spiritual director, we were in the habit of "processing" a lot of stuff. I didn't think I needed to write a letter to deal with "unprocessed" emotions. But I'm a compliant student. I had a homework assignment. I wrote my first letter aboard a flight to Boston for a business meeting—when not writing letters to bridge the space between "this world" and the "other" world, I practice business law and sit on a number of public, private and non-profit boards.

The rest of the letters were written in the study of Katagiri Roshi, the former head teacher of the Minnesota Zen Center, who died a few years before Nancy. The space was imbued with the quiet of practitioners who had been sitting zazen—meditation practice—earlier in the morning. The letters to Nancy poured out, one after another, during a six-month sabbatical from lawyering. I guess there was some unfinished business after all.

Nancy died shortly before our twenty-eight wedding anniversary. We have two children. I continue living in Minneapolis. I continue lawyering. I continue writing. And I continue loving Nancy.