My wife’s emergency numbers are still taped inside the kitchen cupboard

Dear Delyara, My wife died two years ago, and today I finally painted the kitchen. When I emptied the cupboard beside the telephone, I found the old sheet of paper she had taped inside the door: doctor, plumber, poison line, our daughter, our son, my mobile number, the neighbour with the spare key. Her handwriting becomes smaller toward the bottom because she ran out of space. I laughed when I saw my own number. She knew it by heart. Why write it there? Then I remembered she made the list when our grandchildren first started staying overnight, because she said children should always know where the important numbers are. I was going to throw it away. The plumber retired. Our old doctor died. Our daughter changed numbers. Half the list is useless. I peeled the tape off, folded the paper, then taped it inside the freshly painted cupboard again. The decorator asked whether I had forgotten something. I told him no. I am seventy-one. I know emergency numbers belong in phones now. Still, there is something comforting about opening a cupboard and seeing proof that my wife once believed every emergency had somebody you could call, including me.