Dear Jack,

If I could go back to our last night together and tell myself how special what we had was, I would have fought for it.

Back then, we needed our space, but now when I see you and talk to you about the little things in life, I know that despite the fact that we aren’t together, we have still found the same things and come to the same conclusions. We could have been so happy together, we could have helped each other grow. And now we are going to separate colleges to become new people and have a fresh start. But all I want to do is go back in time and be with you.

You say you will always care about me and I know that should be enough. After all, I pushed you away in the youth of our happiness. But I wish we were more. I wish you had fought for me. If I could, I would persuade you to let me back into your life as more than just a friend. You truly are the only person who I feel comfortable around and I miss you. 

I’m not ready to say goodbye, even though you already have. 

Maybe in two years, I won’t remember your smell or your laugh and I can move on. And maybe I’ll find somebody new at college who lives up to you. But I doubt that will happen, because you are my first love and my best friend. 

So goodbye, and good luck,

I still love you,
Lexi, age 18

Dear Grandpa Sam,

I never knew you. When I was born, you were already in the thick of a long, tiring battle against Alzheimer’s disease. It was an endless battle, taking you all the way to your deathbed, seven years ago.

I was so young. I didn’t understand why I would come home from school waiting to hug mom, only to find her sobbing so silently through tears of glass, crumpled on the laundry room floor. Her shoulders would shake violently and her delicate frame looked as if it would shatter any second. I was afraid to touch her for fear that I would only hurt her more.

If only I had known this. If only I had known that. If only I had known that you wouldn’t just stay in that hospital bed forever. That you were never going to talk again, that you weren’t just shy like I thought. That we would never get the chance to be close. I would’ve said so many things, given you so much to take with you out of this life.

Just this last Christmas, I received a present from Grandma. It was rectangular in shape and covered in tissue paper and a plastic grocery bag. It was a picture of you on your horse; an Appaloosa named Wapati. The other men in the picture on your team are all dressed in red coats with buttons, dark pants and cowboy hats. One man holds a flag, but everybody is looking down, I think to avoid the glare of the sun. Everyone except for you. You are looking up, like that sun is no match for you. Like it had better not dare to glare in your eyes. It was the first time I really got a good look at your face. I can’t quite see your eyes, but just by the way you hold your head I assume with no doubt that they’re filled with the intensity of a raging ocean, and the calm before the storm. The first rain after a long drought, and the first day of a good-for-berry-picking summer. Hardships and peace. Fire and ice. So many emotions were reflected in just one expression upon your face. You didn’t just have strength. You were strength.

That’s why I was certain that Alzheimer’s was nothing different than any other battle you had fought and won. 

How do I know so much about you without ever having really met you? I don’t know. I guess I see these things in myself. In my love of horses and big beautiful skies and being outside and huge open spaces filled with nothing but grass.

In being free.

So this is what I have to say to you: I’m glad you’re free, too. Free of the unbearable weight of disease and pain. Free to have your mind back and free to have no worries and free to have heaven. I love you so much; crying myself to sleep some nights, desperately grasping my tear stained pillow, I was always thinking about how you would have come to every horse show or rodeo of mine, coached my high school equestrian team and led my 4-h group. It makes me know that you were an amazing person.

I’m very excited to meet you someday. I hope that when you are looking down on me from heaven, wanting to tell me to sit up straight in the saddle and appreciate every little thing that mom does for me, that you are proud of me.

Love,
your Granddaughter,
Jamie, age 14

Dear P,

It was never my intention to fall in love with you.

The truth is, when I met you, I really thought I was just some mid-life crisis for you–your last hoorah before you realized you wanted to settle down. I believed that a man like you was simply trying to recapture his youth with a woman 18.5 years his junior, and then, when he realized how immature, insecure, and clueless about life I was, you’d disappear like a thief in the night.

But you stayed. Week after week, month after month. You gave me the things men of my past dangled in front of me but couldn’t deliver: commitment, honesty, warmth, effort. You were my knight in shining armor, sent by the forces of the world to save me from myself. And I fell in love. So, so deeply in love. With your intelligence. Your articulateness. The grays in your hair. The video updates you made for work and that movie-star sparkle in your eye. I fell for the way you’d remember that I liked my coffee black, with a single ice cube. With the kale smoothie you made me (and the way you really tried to like them too). With the way your sheets smelled, and the way you didn’t get mad at me when I got my make up all over them. I lived for the days when I got to see you fall asleep and wake up - opening one eye at a time. I was completely enamored.

But all that love I felt was too much, too soon for this 21 year old. I simply wasn’t ready for everything I was feeling, or so I thought. I’d often think about the way you’d joke that I would have to take care of you one day or soon push you around in a wheelchair. I‘d think about how in five years, I’d be 26 years old, at the height of my life, and you, 45, already well-seasoned and past the bumps I’d only experience for the first time. And that terrified me.

So I pushed you away. I closed the door to my heart the only way I knew how–by acting like a child. I’d pick fights with you over everything. I’d fight with you over why you never told me you loved me, when I knew quite well that you did through your gestures and actions. I’d pick fights with you over the waitress, when I knew you couldn’t care less about who she was or what she looked like. I, regrettably, wanted to show you that you were wasting your time with me – so you did what any self-respecting man would do, and you believed me.

And then you left. You said you couldn’t deal with me anymore. I had worn you down. You weren’t a fighter.

And there I was, wounded by my own actions, guilty of pushing away a man I truly loved – the only man that shared my passion for liberal politics, academia, financial news, NPR, TV and film, poetry, food, culture, and semicolons. You were so much older than me, but you treated me like an equal, and I cannot thank you enough for all the patience you showed me, the lessons you taught me, and the positive contributions you made to my life. 

I see now that it shouldn’t have mattered to me when I met you or how old you were. All that should have mattered was that I met a man that filled me with such love and adoration that I should’ve just trusted my feelings and loved him the way he deserved to be loved.

I want you to know that I am ready. I am ready to let my guard down. I am ready for mature love. I am ready to build my life with you. To have children, be a wife, make you coffee (for once), and to learn and grow together.

Unfortunately, I fear that I have irreversibly broken our bond and relationship—and that I am too late. The tables have now turned: the door to your heart has closed and I may never be able to enter again.

I know a part of you still believes I am the one for you. I know a part of you wants me to be in your future. I know a part of you knows that we can make each other very happy. I hope that part of you comes back to me. I know that you’re going to need time to let me back into your life. But I also know that, now, it’s my time to be patient. 

If and when you need me, I’ll be here – growing and working on myself. I just want you to know, my door is open.

Always and forever.
Toosh, age 21

Dear Dad,

The rubber tire of a bike rides along the pavement, grabbing each and every little rock that builds the ground to stay standing, but every time I manage to fall. That’s when you come rushing to see if I’m okay. You and I both know I’m fine, so toughing it out is the way to go. I get back on and you grab the back of the seat and handlebar to get me going. I’m screaming, “DADDY, DADDY DON’T LET GO! DON’T LET GO!” You say you won’t every time. Until the sixth time, I repeat myself, and you reply the same. But this time, it’s different. I feel different. Almost as if I am flying. Like I could go anywhere. 

I thought you were still behind me, but you were all the way back where we started, watching. I got scared and fell. I was fine thinking you were still holding the seat, but I look back and my confidence falls to the ground. Like I did. Like I always do. I always have been falling to the ground all my life. You were always there to come running to pick me up when I fell. 

I wish I would have said thank you for all the times you picked me up when I was down. I wish I’d said, “I love you dad,” like I meant it, other than having it come out sounding like I just had to say it. But dad, every time I said it, I really did mean it.

I regret not coming to you about things. Instead you found out from my mom, not from me. Even though it doesn’t it doesn’t seem like a big deal, I knew it hurt you deep down. You were thinking I didn’t trust you or you weren’t easy enough to talk to. Or it could have seemed like I didn’t want to talk to you, when in all reality, I wanted to tell you things. Things that were on my mind, or things that I was going through. It seems everytime I go to maybe talk to you, I catch you in a horrible mood every time. So I just brush it off and don’t say anything about it. I also just needed a girls’ perspective; I would come and ask you for advice and you would say to just brush it off, or to tell them off. But dad, like I told you in the past, that wouldn’t work in the girls life. It’s more ignoring than telling them off, and I just can’t brush it off. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust you, but dad, I love you. I mean it.

Carly, age 14

Dear you,

There is so much I want to say, and finding that beginning point isn’t always easy, but I’m going to make it as easy as possible for us both.

It’s been a long time since I have such a good laugh, and trust me, it was much needed.

This time, I’m not going to be quiet about how I’m feeling.

You are an amazing friend, and I feel blessed to have you in my life.

I cannot express how grateful I am that you take the time to listen and feel every word that I can possibly express.

It makes me so happy to know that there is someone, somewhere, in this world that actually gives a damn about what I have to say. 

Thank You. Thank You. Thank You.

I show you this side of me because I completely trust my words with you.
Hold them in the palm of your hand and keep them safe from this chaotic world.

These past three days have been absolutely stellar. Each moment has been accounted for.

Promise that you will always keep in touch.

Your new yet old friend,

Me, age 35

Zander,

Sometimes I forget our memories because it hurts me to wish you were here still. And then randomly and all at once, they flood in. I feel like we’ve already lived a whole life together before this one, and it’s no coincidence that we found our way back to each other. I wish you were here tonight to lay in the Tball field and look at the stars. I want to slow dance in your room. Promise to teach me to ballroom dance over and over again because I will never remember and I will promise to always step on your toes with my two left feet. Let’s sleep on the beach all summer and get so sunburnt that we can’t move. Let’s pretend we aren’t sure where were going to dinner, even though we know we’re going to In ‘n Out. I want to race you to see who can get their card out fast enough pay the bill. I want to make playlists of Bon Iver and take naps on your tiny bed, only this time I don’t want Kyle to come wake us up because he misses you.

Nobody will ever understand how much I’ve missed you, so I think I deserve a few uninterrupted sleeps with you. Promise to tickle me again, even though I hate to be tickled, and I promise I will tickle you back until you laugh loud and deep, with a slight hint of panic. Promise to be the drummer in my rock band, and I promise to lay the guitar on my lap like a dork. I want to watch you shoot bunnies in the yard, and I will always carry them to Siyah so you don’t have to. I want to Skype with you and make funny faces. I want to read scriptures with you on Skype when we can’t be together to read them on your bed. I want to bowl with you, but you have to promise to make a big deal and run to hug me and spin me around when I get strikes, and maybe even when I get gutter balls, and I promise to always let it surprise me.

Promise that you’ll bite my nose and kiss my forehead, and I promise to push your nose up with mine, until you say “Oink”. I want to see your eyes turn green in the sunshine, and I want to see them turn brown when you’re teaching me to dance in the street at night. Play handball, and swing with me and kiss me on the playground. I want to kiss you even when you’re sick, and sleep with you on the trampoline even in the summer when were sweaty and gross. Promise to make me CDs with love songs, and I promise I will learn all the words and sing along. I promise to watch old movies with you and maybe fall asleep, if you’ll promise to wake me up during your favorite parts. I want to watch the Labyrinth with you 1,000 times and annoy you when I recite all the lines to you. I want to burp loud and have sunflower seed spitting contests with you. I want to wear your suit jacket at church when I’m cold, and even sometimes when I’m not. Promise me you will always tickle my knees in church, just so you can touch me. And I promise I will never stop you.

I want to listen to your heart beat, and feel it up against mine own when you tell me you love me. Promise to accidentally hurt my feelings when you’re being too honest and I promise to annoy you when I’m not honest enough. Promise that you will always push me to be better, and I promise to help you appreciate the tender mercies that are all around. But above all, let’s promise to have faith in our Lord, because he is our only chance at all of those things. The best is yet to come. I can’t mail this to you, it wouldn’t be fair, so instead I’ll save it until you’re home and I will read it to you.

Yours,
Nanners, age 19

Grandpa, 

The last time I saw you, you were lying in that hospital bed, hopeless and weak. At seven, I had no idea what was going on. I thought the worst case scenario was that you had a headache. Something as deadly as stomach cancer didn’t cross my mind.

What I wish I could’ve put in your head before you past was that I appreciate everything you did for me. Like when I pointed at something at the store and said, “That’s really cool.” Then, next thing I know, I’m at home playing with it. Now all I want is for you to be here still.

To be honest, if someone really told me you were going to die, would it really be any different? I can’t imagine what I would say to you if I knew! People always say, “I never had a chance to say goodbye”–would saying those words really make a difference? Would it have kept you from dying? I doubt it. 

It was heartbreaking to see you in the hospital, skinnier than you were and without much hair. I wish I told you how much I love you, but it’s too late. When I think about you now, it’s like listening to the sea through a shell, faint and far away, but still there. 

~ABBY, age 12

Dear Mom,

I will be going away for two months in a few days’ time. This time, I will be in South America, to fulfill my little dream of visiting every continent in the world. If you were still around, I know you would be very worried for me. You might discourage me from making this move because you have always been worried for me, for my safety. I can already imagine you shaking your head at my decision.

But if you were still around, I would give up this dream of mine to be with you, to stay by your side. I miss you, I miss the food that you cooked. I miss you singing to your favourite oldies. I remember you used to tell me that you only sing when you are happy. I wish I could hear you sing more. I miss you feeding me, and us doing grocery shopping together. I remember you cuddling me at aunt’s place, fanning and patting me to sleep despite the warm temperature and mosquitoes flying around. I felt so loved and yet I never told you that. 

Throughout my adolescent years, I was rude and rebellious towards you. I did not appreciate that you were working hard to support the family. I did not know you had been through a hard life growing up. I had taken so many things in life for granted. I am ashamed that I only got to know more about you in the last few months of your life.

Despite the pain and suffering you were going through - both from the cancer and the treatment itself- you fought on like a true warrior, never giving up for the sake of the family. Even on your bed, you were still worried about the household chores. You said that you still had many things you wanted to do. When I probed, you told me that there were still sewing to be done, you were worried about us and you were not ready to leave us. I did not reply because I did not know how to. I should have known that everything you did was all for the family and not for yourself. Mom, you were a strong woman and I am not sure if I can be as self-sacrificing as you. 

A few weeks ago, I was looking at your photographs from younger days. I saw how you aged from a beautiful young mother right up to the beautiful but tired-looking grandmother you were. If time could turn back, I want to be your little girl again and I will change myself to make you happier. Wherever you are now, I hope you will be truly happy. I love you, Mom.

Your Ling, age 35

Dear Mom,

Before I begin telling you what I’m going to tell you, I want to say thanks. Thank you for everything you have done for me. For being there for me when I most needed you. Especially when I was sick, in school performances, and more.

However, sometimes when I’m with you, I feel like you’re just looking for something to yell at me about, like when I clean my room. You’re just always telling me that you’re going to go check on it, and when you go see it you’re always yelling at me, that I didn’t clean it right or that it’s not clean enough. Even though I try my best. Another time was when you and dad had to go to work. You left me babysitting, and you told me before you left to clean the house and take care of my sisters. When you got home, your face didn’t look so proud. I was scared, and I felt like you were going to get a belt and hit me as hard as you could. You asked me if I had actually cleaned the house, because it looked like I didn’t. I tried my best. I cleaned the kitchen, bathroom, bedrooms and living room, and still put my baby sister to sleep and told A to take a shower.

I know that being a mom is not easy and I respect that. I know you’re trying to show us how, because soon we are going to get married and have kids and we are going to do what you’re teaching us now. But like I said, I try my best, doing what you tell me do and even when you don’t tell me. 

Whenever you start yelling at me for something, there is always a time, either when you’re done or in the middle of yelling at me, where a part of my heart hurts. And when we go to bed I feel so unloved, and then I start crying, and little by little I end up bawling.

You know how you always tell me you’re tired of telling me what to do? Maybe you shouldn’t tell me anything for a day. You can take the day off and I will do your job, but you can’t tell me anything. Maybe you can go out with my dad or something, but take a day off and I will do your job.

Your daughter,
Dayana, age 14

My Dear Blue Eyed Devil, 

Today I listened to the Joshua Kadison CD that has “our” song on it. We went into the shop in Rotterdam together and I bought two copies of that CD. I gave one to you. We were in the midst of what we would get to call our “Ten Days Of Joy”.  The ten days with you that I still cherish so much. You took a ten day break from your work in England to visit me. On the days I had to work, you came with me in the morning and we’d spend my lunch hour together. I couldn’t wait for the office hours to be over…to see you again. And the evenings were long and cozy. We’d watch movies, listen to music, play games, talk, act silly, snuggle up and love each other. You made me feel beautiful, so special, sexy. I have never felt quite like that again. The love in your eyes when you looked at me. Oh, I will never forget that.

And yet, there was something inside you that prevented you from being really happy. There was this part of you that was always dark. And then, you let me go. You let me go, even though I so badly wanted to stay with you, be with you and live my life with you. I didn’t care that you didn’t want to settle down. I would live the nomad life with you. I would have, you know.  But you wouldn’t let me. And so you disappeared from my life. You left me heartbroken for many, many years.

We’d still write every now and then. Until the day I wrote you that I’d be getting married. I am so so sorry if that letter broke your heart, too. but I really had to go on living my life. You never asked me to wait, you were convinced that you would make me unhappy. So I moved on. With you in my heart, I moved on. But it was so hard to lose touch with you. I never heard from you again. I kept writing letters for years. Until I couldn’t do it anymore. Until I had to let go too. But you were still in my heart. And in my dreams. I dreamed of you so often!

I lived in England for a few years and at railway stations and airports, I was always looking for you. I sometimes was convinced that I would see you again.

Our “Ten Days Of Joy” will be 17 years ago this summer. And in September it will be 3 years ago since you died. How do I know that you died? I just do. I felt it. It was a horrible, horrible realization and feeling and I was crying for days and days. One of my friends is a lady with very special talents and she got in touch with your energy. She told me that you had broken off all contact, because you wanted me to be happy in the life that I’ve made myself. You didn’t want to be a cause for hurt or confusion. And I finally understood that you really meant well. She also told me that you were very sorry for making some bad decisions. Your life wasn’t a happy one. And that hurts me so much. It makes me incredibly sad for you. I shouldn’t be sad for you now, because you are at peace now. And you are also always with me. I have felt you with me many times.

But today, while listening to Joshua Kadison, I was wondering if I could have made you happy. I so wished you a happy life filled with love. Could I have given that to you? Was your biggest mistake not letting me in your life? Or did you prevent us from a lot of pain and unhappiness? Did you give me my chance at happiness by letting me go? I guess we will never know.

One of your mates once said to me: “To him you are the sun and the moon.” I will always remember that. You loved me like nobody else loved me. I think you sacrificed your happiness for mine. I thank you for that. I love you, too. I will always love you. So if I could have seen you one more time, that is what I would have said: "I will always love you”.

Yogi