A former Navy SEAL penned a touching letter to his late brother, who was not named, in a Fox News op-ed, “Memorial Day 2023: Note on a white stone cross.”
“Just checking in. Looks like some of the other boys have come by today,” Willink wrote about the gravesite, via Fox News.
He noted, “Lots of flowers. Did you ever think you’d be getting a bunch of flowers from guys in the platoon? I sure didn’t.”
Willink shared all of the things he missed about him.
“I wish you could have stayed a little longer, though. I’d really like to see you smile again. Hear you laugh,” he said.
He added, “Your laugh made other people laugh — me included. A little extra joy in the world.”
Willink acknowledged the “joy that is now gone.”
“I miss that. I miss you,” he said.
Willink pointed out that “the world moves on” and “time stops for no man.”
“Look at me. Gray hair. Wrinkled skin,” he said.
He added, “I’m the old guy we used to laugh about.”
John 15:13 says, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”
Willink revealed how he originally coped with his brother’s death.
He shared:
“I was angry at first — angry at you, angry at myself, angry at the world. I couldn’t understand why— why you? Why were you taken from this world? Taken from me?”
Despite his pain, Willink was eventually able to let go of his anger and feel gratitude for the times they spent together.
“Thankful to have known you. Thankful to have spent time with you. Thankful to have served alongside you,” he said.
He said he was also “thankful” to call him “friend and brother.”
“In your death, you gave me life. I will live this life to the fullest. I promise: I will not squander a moment — not a breath, not a sunset, not a laugh,” he assured.
Willink concluded, “I will live to honor the gift you gave me. The life I owe to you. I will never forget.”
“Until next time, Your Brother,” he concluded.