Dear striped shirt boy,

As the years go by, your name has escaped my mind but your kindness is something that I will never forget. 

There I was, crying because I’d been abandoned (not really, later my parents told me that they had their eyes on me the entire time) in the middle of the park. All I saw were strangers around me and I was terrified. Then you, the only one brave enough to walk up to a crying seven year old and ask the question, “Are you okay?” You, with your burnt blond hair and your green and blue striped shirt. 

“ I’m fine,” I replied, pulling what confidence I had left together.

“You don’t look fine,” you pronounced, and I glared at you. “Here, let’s go play,” you said as you offered your hand to me. As we walked to the swing set, I looked at the hand you guided me with, thinking how nice it was of you to walk over to a crying girl and ask her to play with you. As we played together, time seemed to fly but you still played with me, no matter how bossy I was; just two seven year olds slithering through the play structure. 

I knew that when I was “found” our fun would stop. Still, when it happened and I had to go, I was heartbroken. You had done so much for me, and now I was leaving you. But I had no choice. I said goodbye, and left you swinging on a swing.

Though I never saw you again, you influence me everyday. I try to be as caring and generous as you were. You gave me so much: a hand, a smile, a friend, and all I gave you was a goodbye. I look back now and wish I’d told you, “Thank you, this means a lot.” Or something along those lines. Even though I never got to say it, I want to thank you. What you did for me that day is forever in my thoughts. 

Thanks.
T, age 14

Dear Nana,

It’s been a long six and a half years since I last saw you. You were lying on the hospital bed, motionless, with tubes monitors and wires surrounding you, and my heart was shattered. I wanted to help you, but I couldn’t. The cancer had gotten very severe, and there was nothing anybody could do but let nature take its course.

I wish you were still around so we could still enjoy the good times we had, like feeding the sheep, re-painting all the toys for no reason, painting those tiny little flower pots, playing Pac-man and all those other old Nintendo games on the Atari, or working in the garden. I’ll always remember your margarine and bologna sandwiches (they were really good). I know we both enjoyed the good times and I really miss them. I never really got to say goodbye, and that’s what I’d like to say.

Goodbye Nana.
Your Grandson Jake, age 14

Dear Adam,

It’s been eight months since you passed away. I miss you so much. A lot of things have changed so much since you left. I got to know your awesome kids more. How your kids are so much like you. I stare in awe every time they say something cute. We (Rita & I) finally granted one of your wishes; we got our boys to finally play together. Adam, you would have loved this: they sat and played marbles. It was unbelievably cute.

With your passing, I have become a better friend to those how I care deeply for. I have told people how I really feel for them. Something that was so foreign to me before. You know, I replay that night we were coming home from a night of drinking when I spilled my guts out to you. That I loved you and I regretted not going further in our relationship besides being best friends. You looked at me like I was crazy and said nothing. l laughed it off. Maybe it was my intuition, knowing I wouldn’t have you in my life for very much longer, because you were gone four months later. I also remember you telling Josh to take care of me every chance you had. He is, Adam. He is.

I do wish I had one more chance to hug you or high five you. I miss you so much, my best friend. Save my seat, Adam, because when we are finally reunited I am going to have a lot of stories for you.

Your friend, age 33

Dear Dad,

I treasure those many days I spent with you at the hospital. I did not know it then, but they were like little gifts from god. I now see how blessed I was. I would give my right arm today just to have one of those days back.

I’m not sure why, but I have so many things that remain in my mind that I wish I did, or didn’t do; things I wish I said and especially things I wish I didn’t say.

I should have told you the truth from the very first day we knew. I should have told you that you were going to die, and die soon. Perhaps your last days on this earth would have been different. Maybe instead of spending every day wishing and hoping that the doctors would be able to cure you, perhaps you would have gotten your emotional and spiritual affairs in order, and perhaps leaving us all behind would have been easier for you to bear on your way to the light.

I’m sorry I did not tell you the truth. I thought I was protecting you, but at the same time I was honoring Mom’s wishes not to tell you. She always said, and still says, that you did not want to know, and that we were honoring you by not telling you. Was she right? Sometimes I think that she knew you better than I, so she must have been right. On the other hand, I’m so angry with her for not telling you for her own reasons. I will work, however, on forgiving her, because I know that is what you would want.

I miss you more than my words can express. I am very grateful for having you in my life as long as I did. You inspire me to be a better person every day. I love you!

Your loving daughter,
Judi, age 47

Matt,

I should’ve kissed you yesterday. 

Love,
Quinn, age 15

Dear Mom,

Thank you for doing the hardest job in the world and raising me. I never got to tell you how strong you were and how incredibly proud I was to be your daughter. That you inspired me to be strong and independent. I marvel at you being a single Mom at 26 and raising me while working full-time. How I’ll talk anyone’s ear off that will listen about you and how great a Mom you were. You left big shoes to fill. You taught me how to stare down the things that scare me, never let people see you sweat and how to grab the bull by the horns and give it all you’ve got.

You showed me the importance in loving people and loving them fully. You taught me invaluable lessons on time, how to use it most wisely and how not squander it. That we are only given so much of it and to never take a minute of it for granted. Never take anyone for granted and never forget how people treat you, good or bad, and respond accordingly. Thank you for instilling in me the importance of education, pushing me to do better and seeing me graduate from college. I know this was a huge deal for you. I wish in the end I had asked you more questions. Your generosity was immeasurable so much so that people will still tell me about the things you did for them. You gave not only of yourself, but your time and love.

Even seven years later, it still stings to think of the things you will never be able to see and how much I miss you every second of everyday. You were truly my best friend and the person I would go to with anything. I know even now that you’re still here and pulling strings to make things happen for me and I appreciate all the support and love I still feel from you. If I can be a 1/10 of the women you were I will consider myself a success. I never got to tell you but losing you was like losing a piece of myself, that’s how very much I loved you. I love you to pieces and I’d tell you a 1,000 times a day if I had the chance. Thanks, Mom, for being the best, being my friend to the end and showing me in 23 years more than many people learn in a life time.

Love,
Sarah Kate, age 30

Uncle Kermitt,

I don’t know where to begin. You were in my life for 16 years, and in a split second, you were gone. There’s that saying that says time heals all wounds. Well whoever said that must not have had a very big ‘wound’, because even i know that’s not entirely true.It’s been almost eight years since you took your own life, but when I close my eyes and think back to that time, it feels like just yesterday. The world made perfect sense up until that point, and most days I didn’t have a care in the world. Something changed within me when you died. I grew up, and I realized that the world makes absolutely no sense, that people die at the drop of a hat, or the pull of a trigger, and nothing or any amount of time will take the grief away. The grief comes in many different forms. Sometimes it’s tears, sometimes confusion, every once in a while it’s anger, occasionally it’s a numbness, but most of it is a hurt so deep inside my soul that I literally feel physical pain from it. Only this type of physical hurt doesn’t have an over the counter remedy, or a ten day treatment plan. It’s a hurt I have to ride out and hope fades away after a while.

So much has changed since you left. Parts of our family aren’t as close as they once were, while others that weren’t close before, are inseparable. In a way, many of us were brought closer after your death, but none of it replaces the part you played so well in our family. You had a big heart and loved all of us so much that I think you may have loved a little too much. You were easily disappointed by the actions of others, and I think overtime you lost hope in a lot of things and in a lot of people. You treated me like your own daughter, and you were definitely like a second dad to me, always so encouraging and impressed with me when it came to volleyball and my grades in school. You were like that with everyone, though. It’s hard to believe that we have all lived the last eight years without you being a part of it, and it makes me sad that you’re missing out on so much.

If I had the chance to talk to you, even if for a second, the first thing I would say is I’m sorry. I’m sorry we let you down. I’m sorry I hung up on you when you called a few weeks before your death, looking for the wife that I was supposed to say was not at our house. I’m sorry you felt so alone and abandoned that the only course of action you could take was to commit suicide. I’m sorry that I or someone else was not there to tell you how important you are, loved you are, and that no matter what you were facing, you would get through it and find the light at the end of the tunnel.

I would also tell you how much you meant and still mean to me. How much it meant when you complimented my hair, my grades, or the dives I took on the volleyball court. How much it meant to me when you stuck up for me when my dad and I would argue. How much it meant that you’d offer to take me somewhere if I needed a ride. How much I appreciated when you’d stop by our house just to chat, but you always brought us a sweet treat like a candy bar or ice cream. And how much I loved when you sang “All Brianna wants for Christmas is her one front tooth” even though it embarrassed me most if the time.

Above all else, I’d tell you that I love you and let you know how terribly missed you are.

I know one day when we meet again, none of what I would have said will matter, because I’ll be happy to see you again, and so overjoyed that those words won’t be important. But for now, these are the words that help me grieve your loss, and cope with the fact that you’re no longer here. 

Love,
Brianna, age 24

Jordan,

We all lose people. We all lose touch with someone, something. This is not a bad thing, it is a part of human evolution, a natural part of life. But sometimes nature doesn’t nurture, and it hurts to lose. The most painful losses of all are the ones that we don’t realize. The process of losing ourselves. They say that when a door closes, a window opens, and I think that every once in awhile, a little piece of you gets caught in the door, and shut in, never to be retrieved again. You lose a part of your self.

What if you could go back and collect all the pieces, though? What if you could reconstruct yourself at three years old. When daddy coming home was the highlight of the day. When the hardest decisions in life were whether to watch Sleeping Beauty or Snow White. When you could change your outfit ten times a day without anyone caring. Back when you sang “Jesus Loves Me” at the top of your lungs from the Wendy’s bathroom, with the unashamed faith of a little girl. Back when you were the epitome of self-confidence, working your way from the back of the risers to the middle of the stage for an impromptu solo during church.

But then you lost some of you behind those doors. Years passed, you began school, and turned four, five, six, seven and eight. You didn’t sing “Jesus Loves Me” in public any more. You quickly grew out of the stage when you were six, and always excited for Wednesday’s when we got to sit with the Special Ed kids at lunch, and on other days, you would find someone who had no one else. But then more years passed,you no longer sat by the lonely kid at lunch, but with the same friends everyday. While you lost some of your tenderness, you also started something new. Those friends that I sat with at lunch made up the Fabulous Four. Lindsay, Sydney, Ashley and Jordan. You all grew so close, you thought you guys could never break or bend.

There was a special snow dance that you performed to encourage snow weather, choreographed by yours truly. When it was cold outside at recess, we would all hold hands and roll up into a human cinnamon roll, taking turns on the inside to warm up. We had super secret special folders that Lindsay’s mom scored for us; they were actually old medical charts, and inside them we had our motto, “No matter what, we show love.”

It all fell apart when we stopped showing love. The Fabulous Four quickly deteriorated, being lured toward other things. Tragedies wedged walls between us, and it wedged a wall between myself and the girl who always wanted to show love. And today, I thirst for the bold faith that allows me to sing “Jesus Loves Me” anytime and anywhere. I long to tell that little girl to never stop singing. I long to tell her to never stop becoming so preoccupied that daddy coming home isn’t special, because it is. I want to tell her to always pick Sleeping Beauty, and to take advantage of the time when that’s all her days were filled with.

I applaud that little girl who never doubted herself, or her faith. I need to tell her to always believe in herself, because that can get her through anything. I so want to tell that six year old to keep sitting with the outcasts and weird people, because they are the people who really need someone to sit by them. I want to tell the Fabulous Four to rejoice in friendship, and to always fight to make it work. I need to tell that eight year old Jordan to get her butt back in that car at Sydney’s mom’s funeral. I would tell her to grab that card that reads, “‘For I know the plans I have for you’, declares the Lord.’ Plans to prosper, and not to harm you. Plans to give you a hope, and a future.’ Jeremiah 29:11”, because it looks like she could really use that card right now. I would tell her to always cherish the old friends while welcoming the new. If she had found that balance, things would have been a lot different.

But, being a logical person, I know that right now I am writing to no one. That girl, those girls, are long gone. But there is also a saying that goes something like, ‘You can’t move forward until you look back.’ So now I want to move forward and be able to not look back with regrets. You remember your past to learn from it. Here’s to moving forward, learning from the past, and taking a little something from it, too. Tonight, when dad gets home, I am going to give him the biggest hug in the world.

Here’s to the future,
Jordan, age 14

Dear D.,

Nearly two years have passed since we last saw each another. You unloaded my bags at the airport curb, kissed me on the forehead, looked into my eyes, and said: “It was nice meeting you.” I succeeded in not looking back as you drove away and then proceeded to board the plane that brought me out of my dreams and back to reality.

For the longest time, it seemed totally senseless that someone like you would enter my life only to exit it so swiftly. Yet, with the advantage of hindsight, I have come to realize that our paths crossing and uncrossing acted as the catalyst that was necessary in order for certain key changes to occur. Somehow, I have managed to acquire a spirit of thankfulness for the way that everything unraveled, even though I wish that it all had gone very differently.

Soon I will go to live in that bayside place where one autumnal morning I first saw your face, but perhaps I will never be able talk to you again. However, here in this letter all things are possible and I can write whatever I like: which is that you are both within and without the most beautiful boy that I have ever met, and that you will always carry my heart around with you wherever you go or whoever you see or whatever you do.

Yours always,
S, age 23