Who to write your legacy letter to: a complete guide

You already know you should write a legacy letter to your spouse. Probably your kids too. That's the easy part. You could make that list in five seconds without thinking about it.

But here's what happens to most people who sit down to figure out who to write a legacy letter to: they write two names, maybe three, and then they stop. Not because there's no one else. Because the other names feel less obvious, less expected, maybe even a little uncomfortable.

Your best friend since college. Your older brother who you talk to twice a year but would take a bullet for. A teacher who changed the direction of your life and has no idea. Your business partner. Your grandchildren who haven't been born yet. The person you haven't spoken to in a decade.

These people deserve letters too. Some of them might need yours more than anyone on the obvious list.

Building your full list of legacy letter recipients is its own kind of exercise, and it's worth doing carefully. Because the letters you almost didn't write are often the ones that matter most.

Your spouse or partner

Start here because it feels natural, but don't mistake familiarity for simplicity. The letter to the person who shares your bed is one of the hardest to write, precisely because they already know you so well. You have to find the things they don't know they need to hear.

What goes in this letter: the specific moment you knew this was it. The thank-you for something they did years ago that you never properly acknowledged. Permission to be happy after you're gone, to sell the house, to fall in love again. These are the things people don't say out loud because the moment never feels right, and then the moments run out.

If you want help figuring out how to adjust your voice for this letter versus the others, the guide on writing legacy letters to different people breaks down the specific approach for each relationship.

Your children

This one is obvious, and it should be. But what's worth noting is that if you have more than one child, each one needs their own letter. The things you want to say to your firstborn and the things you want to say to your youngest are not the same things. They had different versions of you as a parent. They carry different wounds, different gifts, different questions.

Write to the child who's easy to talk to. Also write to the child who isn't. The second letter is probably more important.

What goes in this letter: specific memories that prove you were paying attention to their particular life. The qualities you see in them that they might not see in themselves. The apology for the thing you got wrong. The explanation for the decision they never understood.

Your parents

This is the one that catches people off guard. Your parents are older than you. Writing them a legacy letter feels backward. But think about it from their side for a minute.

Your parents have spent decades wondering if they did a good enough job. Whether the sacrifices landed. Whether you turned out okay because of them or in spite of them. A letter from you could answer questions they've been carrying for thirty years.

And here's the thing people don't like to think about: you don't actually know who's going to die first. Car accidents don't check birth certificates. A legacy letter to your parents isn't morbid. It's honest.

What goes in this letter: the specific thing they gave you that you didn't appreciate until much later. The moment from your childhood that you think about more than they'd expect. The answer to the question they've probably been too afraid to ask: did I do okay?

If your relationship with a parent was complicated, you can say that too. You don't have to pretend. But find the thread of good that ran through it, even in the hard years, and name it. That's often what a parent needs to hear most.

Your siblings

Your siblings are the only people on earth who shared your origin story. They know the sound of your parents' voices, the layout of the house you grew up in, the inside jokes that would mean nothing to anyone else. They also know the worst version of you, the one that existed before you learned to manage your edges.

What's strange about sibling relationships is how much goes unsaid. You assume your brother knows you respect him. You figure your sister understands that the years you didn't talk weren't about anger, just about life getting complicated. You assume wrong.

What goes in this letter: the shared memory that only the two of you carry. The thing you admire about them that you've never said directly. And if there's an old wound sitting between you, something about the inheritance, the argument at Thanksgiving, the years of silence, a single honest sentence can close a chapter that's been open for decades.

Your best friend

Not everyone who deserves a legacy letter shares your last name. Some of the most important people in your life chose to be there, and that voluntary loyalty is worth acknowledging in writing.

Think about the friend who showed up at your door during the worst year of your life. The one who called you every week after the divorce, not because you asked, but because they knew. The one who's seen every version of you and stuck around anyway.

What goes in this letter: what their friendship actually did for you, with specifics. The moment they probably forgot but you never will. The thing you see in them from the outside that they take for granted about themselves.

This letter doesn't have to be long. Sometimes a single page that says "You were the phone call I made every time my life fell apart, and you answered every single time" is enough.

A mentor or teacher

Somewhere in your history, there's a person who changed your trajectory. Maybe it was a high school English teacher who took your writing seriously when no one else did. Maybe it was a boss who gave you a chance you hadn't earned yet. Maybe it was a coach, a professor, a neighbor who showed you what a certain kind of life could look like.

These people rarely know the full extent of their impact. They did something that felt small to them and it rearranged your entire future.

What goes in this letter: the specific thing they did. Not "you were a great teacher" but "the day you kept me after class and told me I had something worth saying, I was two weeks away from dropping out." Then trace the line from that moment to where you ended up. Show them what their investment produced.

You might not even know if this person is still alive. Write the letter anyway. If you can deliver it while they're here, do that. If you can't, it still matters that you put it into words.

Your business partner or close colleague

If you've built something with someone, whether it's a company, a practice, a nonprofit, you share a bond that most people in your life don't fully understand. Your business partner knows your work ethic, your blind spots, your 2 AM panic about whether any of this is going to work. They've seen you make hard decisions and live with the consequences.

What goes in this letter: gratitude for the risk they took with you. The moment you knew the partnership was going to work, or the moment you weren't sure and they kept going anyway. Your honest assessment of what you built together and what it meant to you beyond the money.

If there are practical matters too, wishes for the direction of the business, that's fine. But lead with the human stuff. The human stuff is what they'll keep.

Your grandchildren (even the ones who don't exist yet)

This might sound strange, but some of the most powerful legacy letters are written to people who haven't been born. Your grandchildren will grow up in a world you can't imagine, and they'll have questions about where they came from that their parents won't be able to answer.

You're the one who remembers what their great-grandmother's kitchen smelled like. You're the one who knows why the family moved from Ohio to California in 1987. You're the one carrying stories that will disappear entirely if you don't write them down.

What goes in this letter: the world you grew up in, described with enough detail that they can feel it. Stories about their parents from before their parents became parents. The values that have run through your family like a river, and where those values came from. If you want to go deeper on this one, the guide on writing a legacy letter to grandchildren covers it thoroughly.

Someone you need to make peace with

This is the name on the list that makes your stomach tighten. The relationship that fractured and never healed. The person you wronged, or who wronged you, or where it was so tangled that blame stopped being useful years ago.

You don't have to write this letter. But consider what it would mean to say what's true, without defensiveness, without rehashing the argument, without needing them to agree with you. A legacy letter to someone you're estranged from isn't about reconciliation, necessarily. It's about putting your side of the story on paper in a way that's honest enough to be useful.

Maybe it's an apology for the part that was yours. Maybe it's an explanation that doesn't ask for anything in return. Maybe it's just: "I wish it had gone differently. I think about it more than you know."

If this letter is on your mind, the guide on writing a forgiveness letter that actually heals something will help you find the right words without flinching.

How to build your list

Sit down with a blank piece of paper and give yourself twenty minutes. Don't filter, don't rank, don't decide who "deserves" a letter. Just write down every name that comes to mind when you ask yourself these questions:

• Who would be gutted if I left without saying goodbye?
• Who changed the direction of my life, and did I ever tell them?
• Who do I owe an apology, a thank-you, or an explanation?
• Who am I assuming already knows how I feel about them?
• Who is going to need my words most after I'm gone?

Your list will probably be longer than you expected. That's normal. You don't have to write all of these letters this week, or this year. But having the list means you know the full scope of the work. And you can start with the letter that feels most urgent, the one that's already half-written in the back of your mind.

If you're ready to start writing but aren't sure how to begin, the guide on how to write a meaningful legacy letter walks through the full process from first sentence to finished letter.

Start with one name

You don't have to write ten letters today. You just have to pick one name from your list, the person whose letter scares you a little, or the person whose letter is already forming itself in your head, and sit down with a blank page.

Write one true thing you want them to know. The rest will follow.

Because the difference between a legacy letter that exists and one you meant to write someday is everything. One of them will be found in a drawer or delivered at exactly the moment someone needs it. The other is just a good intention that ran out of time.

When I Die Files gives you a secure, private space to write the letters that matter most — and make sure they reach the right people at the right time.