I am sixty-five years old.
After thirty-seven years of marriage, I was abandoned by the man with whom I had shared almost my entire life.
On the day our divorce was finalized, my ex-husband, Don Rafael, placed a bank card in my hand. His voice was calm—too calm.
“Here are three thousand pesos,” he said. “It should be enough for you to survive a few months.”
He said it as if our thirty-seven years together were worth only that. As if I were an old object that no longer served a purpose.
I watched him turn away and walk out of the family court in Guadalajara without looking back. A lump rose in my throat so tight I could barely breathe.
I kept the card.
Not because I needed it…
but because it felt like a thorn lodged in my heart.
After the divorce, I rented a small, damp room on the outskirts of the city. I survived however I could—cleaning houses, watching parked cars, collecting bottles from the street.
Those were the darkest years of my life.
I went hungry many times.
I fell asleep with an empty stomach more nights than I can count.
And yet, I never touched those three thousand pesos.
Not out of pride,
but because I couldn’t bring myself to touch something that felt like pity.
I hated that card.
I hated the abandonment.
I hated the feeling that, after a lifetime of devotion, I had become a burden.
Time passed like a dull knife—slow, relentless, cutting deep.
My body aged faster than my heart. Some mornings, simply getting out of bed felt like a victory.
My children visited when they could and left me a little money. They had their own families, their own worries. I never told them about the pain, the dizziness, the weakness. I didn’t want to become another weight on their shoulders.
Until one day… my body finally gave up.
I collapsed in front of the door of the room where I lived.
The doctor didn’t hesitate.
“Severe malnutrition,” he said. “You need treatment. Hospitalization.”
I knew I had no choice.
For the first time in five years, I thought about the card.
It only has three thousand pesos… but at least it will help me for a few days.
The next morning, I went to the bank.
My hands trembled as I handed the card to the young teller.
“I’d like to withdraw everything, please.”
In my mind, I already saw myself leaving with a few bills, returning to the fragile life I knew so well.
But the teller stared at the screen.
For too long.
Then she looked at me, eyes wide with disbelief.
“Ma’am…” she swallowed hard. “The balance isn’t three thousand pesos.”
My heart skipped.
“Then… how much is there?”
She printed the statement and slid it toward me.
I looked down at the paper—
—and felt the world stop.
983,000 pesos.
Almost a million.
My breath caught. I thought I was mistaken. I read it again.
The number didn’t change.
“Who… who deposited this money?” I asked, my voice shaking.
The teller turned the screen toward me.
There was a name I knew all too well.
RAFAEL.
Monthly transfers.
For five years.
Without missing a single one.
I returned home in silence.
That night, I didn’t sleep. I lay staring at the ceiling, tears soaking the pillow.
I remembered his distant eyes. His long silences. The nights he stayed awake, pretending I was asleep.
What if… he hadn’t left because he stopped loving me?
I needed answers.
The next day, I traveled to the town in Michoacán where his older sister, Doña Teresa, lived. Her house sat beside endless cornfields.
“Teresa… are you there?” I called, my voice breaking.
She came outside, and when she saw me, her eyes filled with tears.
“María… you’ve come.”
“Where is Rafael?” I asked. “I need to speak to him.”
She said nothing. Instead, she went inside and returned holding a small wooden box. Her hands trembled.
“María… Rafael passed away.”
It felt as though my heart had been torn from my chest.
“No… it can’t be. Only five years have passed…”
She wept.
“He had terminal cancer—before the divorce.”
The world collapsed around me.
“He didn’t want you to care for him,” she continued softly. “He didn’t want your last years to be spent watching the man you love fade away. That’s why he left. That’s why he set you free.”
She handed me the box.
“He told me to give this to you only if you came looking for him.”
Inside was a letter.
His handwriting.
María,
When you read this, I will no longer be here.
Forgive me for leaving in the cruelest way.
It hurt me more than you can imagine.
I didn’t want you to spend your final years caring for a dying man.
I wanted you to live without chains, without tears.
The money is so you will never lack anything.
Eat well. Live well.
I don’t need your forgiveness.
I only want you to be happy.
If there is another life… I would choose you again.
I fell to my knees.
I cried like a child.
For five years, I had lived hating him—
while he fought death alone,
sending me money month after month,
until his hands could no longer do it.
I believed he had abandoned me.
But the truth was far different.
He loved me so deeply…
that he chose to leave alone.
Standing before his photograph on the family altar, I touched the frame with trembling fingers.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I whispered.
But he could no longer answer.
That day, holding a card with three thousand pesos, I thought I was an abandoned woman.
Five years later, standing before his memory, I finally understood the truth:
I was never alone.
I was loved—
until the very end.