He Lost His Dad Two Years Ago. So Imagine the Shock When He Got a Message From His Father in the Mail on Saturday.

More than just about anything, Joseph Torrez wanted a little boy.

"Every star he ever wished on and every wishbone he ever broke, he always wished for a son," his widow, Julie Van Stone, told KUSA-TV.

After his son Rowan was born, Torrez was smitten. "He adored him," Van Stone said.

Image source: KUSA-TV

Which made it that much harder when Torrez, a Navy commander, ventured east from their Colorado home in pursuit of two masters degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — because he wanted a better life for his family.

Image source: KUSA-TV

And even though Rowan was only a toddler, Torrez would send his son postcards from Boston. On one road trip back home in 2007, he sent Rowan a postcard from each state he stopped in.

"I vaguely remember him saying I sent five or six, and I only got three or four in the mail," Van Stone told the station. "But I never thought anything of it."

Image source: KUSA-TV

Then, two years ago, Torrez died from a rare brain disease called CJD, or Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, which strikes only one person per million annually. The degenerative illness, which is almost always fatal, can cause failing memory in its early stages and lead to blindness and coma later on.

It "kind of turns your brain into a sponge," Van Stone said.

Torrez was 41 when he died. Afterward, Van Stone created an album filled with photos and keepsakes so that Rowan could hold the memory of his dad alive in his heart.

But on Saturday, just a few days before the second anniversary of Torrez' death, something unexpected came in the mail that ought to take a special spot among the mementos: one of the missing postcards Torrez had sent Rowan from the road, dated June 10, 2007.

Image source: KUSA-TV

It read: "Hello from Pennsylvania. I love you, and I miss you so much. See you soon, love daddy."

"I don't know how it happened," Rowan told KUSA, adding that he remembers his dad as "a very good person and very good dad."

Image source: KUSA-TV

For Van Stone, the meaning of the postcard was clear: "I feel like that was the final goodbye that he didn't get to say."

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