Keep writing, Kid

 

“Keep Writing, Kid” — Harry Morgan’s Last Letter to Gary Burghoff

In the final winter of Harry Morgan’s life, when his hands had grown unsteady and his days had become quieter, he asked his wife to bring him a stack of old stationery. The kind he used to keep in his desk on the MAS*H set — simple, cream-colored pages he often used to write notes to the crew.

He told her, “I need to write to Gary.”

For a long time, he just sat there, holding the pen. The man who once commanded the 4077th with warmth and humor now moved slowly, carefully, choosing every word as if he were stitching a wound. Gary Burghoff wasn’t just a former co-star to him. He was “Radar.” His kid. The gentle soul who gave MAS*H its heart.

The letter took Harry nearly an entire afternoon to finish. When he sealed the envelope, he smiled the way Colonel Potter used to smile after saying something he truly meant.

Days later, Gary opened his mailbox at his quiet home in Connecticut and saw Harry’s handwriting — shaky, but unmistakably his.

Inside was a single page.

“Dear Kid,” it began.

Gary froze. No one had called him that in decades. Only one man ever said it with affection instead of condescension. Only one man made it feel like a badge of honor.

“I’ve been thinking a lot,” Harry wrote. “About those days on set. About the mornings you’d come in with a drawing tucked under your arm. About the way you softened every scene just by walking into it.”

Gary had to sit down.

The letter continued:

“You always had a gift, long before the cameras started rolling. Not just acting — that was easy for you. I mean the gift of gentleness. The world is starving for it, Radar. And you always had more of it than anyone I ever met.”

Gary wiped his eyes. He could picture Harry saying it, voice steady, eyes warm.

“And so I’m writing to ask you this,” the letter said. “Don’t stop creating. Don’t stop writing. Don’t stop painting. Don’t stop bringing that softness into the world. We needed it in Korea — and we sure as hell need it now.”

Near the bottom of the page, Harry had added a line that Gary would later frame above his desk:

“Keep writing, kid. Your heart is still your best talent.”

Weeks later, Harry Morgan passed away. When the news reached Gary, he went into his studio, closed the door, and read the letter again — slowly this time, letting every word land.

Friends say he cried harder that day than he had in years.

He folded the letter carefully, placed it in a wooden box next to his old MAS*H dog tags, and said quietly to the empty room:

“Goodbye, Colonel.”

Harry Morgan didn’t leave behind just a legacy of kindness onscreen. He left behind one last piece of wisdom — a reminder to keep creating, to keep caring, to keep offering the world a little more gentleness.

And Gary has kept that promise.

All because one man took the time, at the end of his own life, to say:

“Keep writing, kid.”

#fblifestyle