The Things You Would Have Said

Dear Mom,

I have said this word to you more than once, and that word is hate. It’s a strong word, and I don’t even know that until I have said it. But then I go back and think about it. I feel really badly when I say it and I know it hurts you when you hear your daughter saying it to you.

Unfortunately, I have said it to you more than once but it just comes out of anger. But you are someone who means the world to me. I didn’t think when I said it, and didn’t know how much four letters could be so strong and hurt you. I never meant to say it, and I never want to again. I hope you take this as a sincere apology. I know I hide my feelings but I love you and always will.

From your daughter, age 12

Dear Dad,

Today I was dusting and found the book I was going to give you for your 60th birthday. It was a book of funny photos and I paused and looked through it. Then Abi came to me and asked what it was, and I said it was Grandpa’s birthday gift. She has your sense of humor. At age 12 she spends too many hours looking at funny videos on the computer and laughing and calling me over endless times to see. She used to call you over to see, too, when you were here.

Earlier today Abi finally polished off Adantino in time for Piano Guild last month. I can still see you sitting next to her, still hear your voice encouraging her that she could do it, just break the piece down into smaller pieces, take each note at its own face value, then put them back together again. Today she pulled it off and played it beautifully, and was so proud of herself. I could hear your voice saying, “I knew you could do it! I just needed YOU to know could do it!” And then you would have followed it up with how this would apply to her whole life. She, at age 12 would have rolled her eyes, but she will carry that confidence you instilled inside her with her and it will make her walk taller. Since you were not there to say those words, the same words you have told me countless times in my own eye-rolling stage, I told Abi those words myself.

On Friday, Nitara will dress up in her Amelia Earhart costume, complete with too-big leather jacket, winged snow hat, and her daddy’s swim goggles holding the hat in place. She will recite facts about this brave woman who was obstinate in her ability to keep trying in a man’s world. You would have made time to come to the Third Grade Living History Museum to see your grand-daughter and you would have been proud and a little tickled.

You raised me to be an obstinate woman, too. Your methods were harsh and I lived with a great deal of bitterness over this for many years. I felt pushed, pressured, deprived of a normal childhood in many ways. But you were a single dad who became a dad way too young and gave up college to have me. You said your life had become shit and you were a postal worker instead of a doctor. You were desperate for me not to make the same mistakes as you. You wanted me to finish my education. You pushed me to become a track star so that I could have a scholarship. You made me do summer homework so I would know how to study. I was resentful and I often hated you for it. Why could I not spend all day relaxing like my friends? Why the early curfew when I got older? Why did you need to make me so tough, to raise me as a Marine the way you were raised by your dad? You did not spare the rod. Oh you certainly did not spare the rod and I welts to prove it. You did not sugar-coat anything. You told me you were making me tough. Behind your harsh actions, I see now, was fear. And that fear was born out of love.

Twelve years ago, you held newborn Abi in your arms and you were so proud. And we talked as two adults. We became good friends. And I told you how hurt I was about some of the things you said and did to me, and you said you were sorry in your own proud, round-about way many times over the years. I’m glad we were able to bury the hatchet, so to speak. I’m glad the last twelve years we were able to be good friends as two adults. Forgiveness is a powerful thing. So is regret.

My regret is that I didn’t call 911 or just drive you to the hospital. You were so stubborn! You said you can handle the asthma, you know more than the doctors, you have had it your whole life. You didn’t want to go to the hospital and that was that. I am a nurse, but what do I know, right? I called you every day to check in with you. You promised to see your doctor and tell him about your asthma attacks. My last ten text messages to you were about going in to get your asthma treated at the hospital. You treated me like I was nagging but I should have just somehow forced you to go to the hospital. I could hear your breathlessness on the phone and I begged you to go in over the next couple of weeks. But you said no, you could handle it. You just needed time. Famous last words, which I have read over and over on my phone.

Your heart stopped and was restarted eleven times. I then learned from your family doctor that you did not tell him how bad your asthma was lately. And you never told us how very bad your heart had become. And that you decided not to get a stent put in. On the way to the hospital that last day, it started to snow. In Phoenix, Arizona. Real snow, thick fluffy clumps of it so that I had to turn on my windshield wipers. By the time we were in the parking lot at the hospital the girls’ tears had turned to whoops and hollers as they spun around with arms out wide and tongues stuck out to catch the flakes. Dad, were you trying to make your girls smile? Were you sorry you did not get help? We slipped and slid our way into the hospital and the laughter stopped. Taking the girls to say goodbye to you was hands-down the hardest thing I have ever experienced in my life. And I did not have an easy life, which you well know. Hearing the girls wail in such deep pain, hold your hand and hug you and you could not squeeze their hands back or tell them it would be okay. Because it was not okay. Not at all okay.

You had a breathing tube down your throat, tubes and wires all over the place, and I was so mad at you for causing this pain to my girls. You could have at least bought some time for us to say goodbye. Sometimes I think you were slowly committing suicide. Between the carelessly uncontrolled diabetes and weight gain, the undisclosed heart problem, the asthma that you “could handle.” You have had dark moods your whole life. Were you depressed again? Were you listening to those talk shows too much again? Did you not at least care enough about the feelings of those who loved you so much? To spare me the pain of calling my 90 year old grandparents to tell them their son was on life support?

You thought being a postal worker was nothing special, but so many of your co-workers showed up to pay their respects that they filled the chapel, spilled out into the halls and then into the parking lot. You would not have believed it. Well, Dad, I don’t know how to end this letter gracefully, but then you didn’t end gracefully either. Just know I miss you and so do the girls, so, so much. And you were better, smarter, and more generous than you thought you were. I only wish you could have forgiven yourself and loved yourself as much as I forgave and loved you.

DS, age 39

Hey,

Since we’re here, I guess I’ll tell you a story, about how we first met.

You might not remember this, but the first time I saw you was the first day of school last year. You were a Freshman and were a little new to our school, so you ended up in my 1st period Math class instead of your math class. I looked back behind me as I always do every year to see who was in the class and when I saw you, I thought to myself “Mmm…He’s kinda cute.” But I didn’t think much into it cause I figured you wouldn’t ever feel anything for me.

Little did I know at the time, that was the day I began to fall. Every day from that moment, I fell deeper and deeper in love with you. When I finally brought up enough courage to ask you out, risking almost everything in that one simple yes/no question, I hit rock bottom. To my fear, you had rejected me in the most kindest way possible. Despite having my heart broken and my mind confused, I couldn’t let myself to stop loving you. So, on that day, I promised myself that, though are not mine to fully love, I’ll try anything and everything to make your life any easier than it already was. I don’t want you to feel alone.

You might be thinking, “How is this related to what I’m about to do?”
Well, I can explain.

Right now, you’re standing here, about to do something that not only changes your life but everyone’s lives, because you are feeling alone and as if no one understands you or what you’re going through. But know this: everyone here wants to help you, telling not to do this. But they don’t understand. Because your entire life you always felt that you always did the wrong thing or said the wrong words. Which probably makes you feel no different now when they are telling the same thing again, that you’re doing something wrong.

I’m not like them. I know what it’s like to not have someone understand you, what it feels like not to have someone on your side.

What I’m trying to say that, if you decide to end it all now, I won’t stop you. Instead, I’ll stand right next to you. I’ll take this fall WITH you. To let you know that you have a friend that will go through this with you. So you won’t be alone. Not with this.

So. We can do one of two things. We can do this together…Or not all. Whatever we do, I’ll have your back.

Your one friend that will always love you, age 18

Dear Shelton, 

The first sentence was the hardest. The blinking cursor waited patiently as I stared at the blank screen, building up the courage to type your name. So far you have just been the anonymous ‘Lover’ in front of whom I’ve been stubbornly refusing to place the ‘ex’. This isn’t the first letter I’ve written you; this isn’t the first letter you will not receive, either. I’m plagiarising my own thoughts here to give them some semblance of coherence.

I’m not okay. It’s been months since you left me (I count the days still, for what purpose I do not know, this isn’t the rabbit hole I want to wander down). I still have that recurring dream where I’m drowning in a tumultuous green sea, reaching out to you at the shore but you cannot hear me. Apparently green is the colour of your heart. I still wake up crying in the middle of the night. My friends are very rational, something I used to be, they analyse and dissect the frog of my feelings and offer the age old wisdom, “Time heals all wounds.” I’m afraid time’s inexorable passage has done nothing to dull the pain. Sometimes the hurt is staggering; sometimes I have to just stop because my bones feel like old ruins crumbling atop an abandoned hill covered with history’s muddy footprints. 

Remember how I said I will forever try to re-enact ‘us’? You’re still the smile I search on the faces of men who came after. Remember that time in that hotel room, tucked away in London’s back streets and Andy Allo’s song ‘This Bed’ came on and you smiled when she started singing, “Is it too soon to tell you I love you?” I swore then if I were to blow that smile like dandelions in the wind, all the wishes in the world would come true. I’ve been on my knees praying to a God I don’t believe in, asking for some kind of vision, but mine never did come true. There are no more candles left to blow out.

I go out on dates and flirt and act nonchalant and indifferent as if I’ve written you off as a regret to be realised after a drunken night out. Well, I don’t drink. And I don’t believe in regrets. We were perfect. We are perfect. I’ve told everyone I’m over you. I lied. I would still drop the world if it meant we had any chance. Is that pathetic?

I fear I will eventually lead a happy, fulfilling life, but. You’ve got an irretrievable part of me now, whether you want it or not, and I will never be able to love again. I said I will fall in love again. I lied. I just wanted to see whether you cared. You don’t. I know you don’t love me and I feel so angry with myself for being so disbelieving. If we hadn’t unraveled each other during those long nights, shared our atoms until we were one, made love to each other’s thoughts, maybe then it would have been easier. I could believe you when you tell me you don’t love me.

When I was with you everything within me was illuminated. I felt like I had swallowed the sun. Now I’m all burnt inside out and I don’t know how to go on. I don’t have the strength to do this. I miss you like my left arm lost in a war. The phantom limb. You’ve turned into the ghost that rattles behind the closed doors of my mind.

I write poetry about you still. I promised I would never put pen to paper again if it meant I could have you. Now it’s all I have left.

She’s not good enough for you. I defy you to find the same happiness with her that you did with me. I want you to be happy. More than anything in this world. 

You think I’m being dramatic. I guess you never did understand. Heartbreak is terminal.

Me, age 24

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 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

Dear You,

That morning, just moments before I went out the door, I felt a slight twinge that something was wrong. You were sitting in the living room chair watching TV as I gathered my coffee and my car keys. You were sitting almost perfectly upright with your back to me and your head stiff. When I said goodbye and came over to kiss you, it took you moment to snap out of the daze you appeared to be in. We kissed eight times, not three or six because of my silly superstition, and then I went off to work. Maybe if I stayed home that day we would still be in our tent fort together.

It was a mundane Tuesday and it was the day of our last kiss. I was told what had happened just a few hours later while on my lunch break. Immediately my legs froze. Everything froze. Every night for five years going to sleep while holding my best friend and my wife in my arms was now gone in an instant. If I had stayed home from work that day, I probably would have told you that my stomach dropped and my heart broke every time I saw you in pain. But I had told you that many times before. Your strength, your soulful blue eyes, your childlike innocence, your enormous heart, your smile, the hundreds of things that made you radiate, that made you turn heads when you walked into a room, that made you my sword–all of these qualities about you made me proud to be your shield. And I told you that often.

So what would I have said to you that morning that I hadn’t already said to you thousands of times before? I wouldn’t have said much, if anything at all. I would have sat next to you in our chair, held your hand, and hoped you would lean your head on my shoulder like you would almost every time we sat in that chair together. That chair was our tent fort, but it’s hard to stand toe to toe with the harsh realities of life and make the one you love with all your being, who suffers through enormous pain every day, believe that the tent fort was really there. Because it wasn’t. Nothing I could ever say or do, no matter how whimsical our imaginations, would heal that very real pain burning inside you.

I would hope in those last moments spent with you on this imaginary, mundane Tuesday morning sitting in our chair together that you would have sighed playfully, smiled and took a nap on my shoulder. Even if my arm fell asleep, or I had to go the bathroom, or was thirsty, I would not move an inch because I know you only found true relief from your pain in your dreams.

Goodnight My Love.

Me, age 38