In one letter he wrote about the first time I told him I wanted to join the Navy.

I had been fourteen and embarrassed to say it aloud.

I thought he would laugh because the nearest ocean was hours away and I was afraid of deep water.

He remembered none of that.

He remembered that I’d said I wanted to be useful when something went wrong.

“You were already looking beyond the edge of the map,” he wrote.

“I hope nobody convinces you the world is smaller than it is.”