Dear Mom and Dad,

I’m sorry.
I’m sorry I haven’t and won’t live up to your expectations for me.
I’m sorry I’ve been so much added stress on your life.
I’m sorry you don’t like my friends.
I’m sorry you disagree with the decisions I’ve made.
I’m sorry I don’t follow all the rules.
I’m sorry I’m not what you wanted.
But I will never truly be sorry. Because I like who I am. 

I might not meet your expectations but I’m damn proud of who I am and what I’ve endured to get here.

The only reason I’m added stress is because you chose to think so low of me. You only take time to notice my flaws and mistakes. So maybe if you tried to pay attention to my success, you would realize I succeed more than I fail.

My friends, the ones you think are “bad influences”, are the reason I’m still breathing. Without them, I’d be fucking lost. If anything, you should be thanking them; they make living with you tolerable.

Look, I know I’ve fucked up in the past, but it’s my life and I control what happens. So stop trying to hold the pen: this is my story and only I can write it.

Rachel, age 16

My Dearest Wendy,

Wouldn’t it be great?
To live life as it once was?
Without worry. Without regret.
Without the troubles that cause us so much pain.
To live like Peter Pan
And the other Lost Boys.
To fly off
To the Neverland.
To forget the world as it is,
And live in the world of adventure.
We could’ve had that, you know.
But because of the fear we learned growing up, I doubt it’s even even possible now.

From your Lost Boy,
The Child Who Never Grew Up, age 18

Dear Mom,

Though there’s so much I wish we could talk about now, I can honestly say that there is nothing unsettled in my heart that I wish I had said before you passed away. Everything that is truly important and needed to be said was said. I told you every day before you passed away how much I loved you and how beautiful you were. Though we only had 21 years together, you taught me so much. 

That said, there’s so much I wish I could tell you now after your passing. There have been countless times that I have reached to pick up the phone and call you only to become frustrated that I know that you can’t answer where you are. So many things have happened, and I wish you were here just to talk about them. It’s the day-to-day things that I want to talk to you about the most, but I’ll just tell you the most important things I really wish you could know. 

I want you to know more than anything that I am still surviving. I still haven’t figured out how to live without you, but each day I wake up and try to make it through. It may not seem like much, but I think it’s what you would have wanted. In your absence, my heart is still broken, and I still cry often, but I also smile a lot when I think about all of the amazing times we had together. I also want you to know that you have left me well equipped to face the rest of life. You taught me the most important lessons in life in the short time we had together: love God, love people, be kind, give whatever you have to make some else’s life easier, and even when life rages against you, sing a song. I miss singing with you so much.

Finally, I want you to know how thankful I have become in the time since your passing. After you passed away, everyone was quick to tell me how sad I would be when I thought about you, but nobody told me how thankful I would be. I believe that I had the most amazing, beautiful, godly mother for 21 years, and when I let that thought sink in, I am overwhelmed with thankfulness for the time we had together. Though some people have their mother for 60 or 70 years, how can I be jealous when I believe that the 21 years we had together were better than 100 with anyone else? I think about all the lessons you taught me—how to love, how to be loved, how to sing, how to worship, how to endure, how to be happy—and my heart is again filled with thankfulness and happiness.

If you can read this where you are, the last thing I want to say to you in this letter is that I love you and miss you so much, and I’ll see you afterwhile.

Love always,
Elijah, age 22

Dear Vlad, 

It’s me, Dasha. You know that girl that had Sunday school classes with you at that one church with the red carpet? The one that dreamed of you and her walking down sunlit streets, careless and happy, with only a future of me and you seen ahead, as best friends sitting on a rickety old bench swing snuggled, comforting each other with words and phrases. You know, that when you felt sick that one time at the building where we gathered in the basement for church, when you fainted from seeing the blood of that one old man, I prayed. I prayed hard that God would make you well and keep you in good health because I knew things would go bleak without you there. Everyone else might have thought you were weak, but I knew you were strong, strong in that heart of yours, because you never really cared what everyone was thinking. 

Your shyness made me even more fond of you. It drew me in, like the nectar of a flower attracts a bee. Even now, when I think back to what could have happened between us after that one folded up, rumpled note your brother handed me following church one Sunday evening after which he rushed away. Did you know I thought you were the boy with the greatest personality ever? How I would always sneak glances at you from the corner of my eyes when I sat trying to do my writing assignment? 

I will forever continue to regret the fact that I didn’t respond to your lovesick note which struck me and made me abashed. I never though you liked me, too. That’s why I couldn’t get the strength to reply, for your note induced fear, fear of taking a leap and saying, “yes, I do too!” If only I knew you also had those feelings I had for you when we still saw each other almost every day. To think it could have been more than thoughts and dreams. You know, I still find it hard to pass over the thought of you with less than a day-long contemplation. My heart still quickens when I picture your young, pale white face lined with prominent deep brown irises. 

You know I searched for you on Myspace the other day. Did you really move to Portland, Alabama? Why? And left me to sit here all alone? Well, I just wanted to say that you’re special, I adored your aura and presence, and I won’t ever forget the way you made me feel. 

Your crush from way back,
Dasha, age 16 

Dear Erik, 

I still cannot believe that you’re gone. I like to think that you’re just somewhere on vacation and that you’re going to come back. It’s easier to deal with, being away at school and not being home all the time. Here, when I don’t run into you, it makes sense. I still cannot understand why you wanted to take your own life. I never would have guessed it in a million years. I never knew you felt that way. I do understand that you were a rare kind of person. You felt everyone else’ pain as your own, and maybe that’s what did it in the end. Maybe that’s why you couldn’t take it anymore, because we were all so weak and you couldn’t be strong for us anymore. All I know is nobody could ever replace you and nothing will erase those high school memories from our minds. We all miss you and love you. 

Love, 
Sammie, age 19 

Dear Lucy, 

Everybody told me then not to be upset, that you had the best of life, that keeping you dignity, wit and near perfect health until age 102 and fading away in just a few months was your best blessing.  Yes, I suppose they are right. But almost a year later I still miss you and that weird certainty that you were immortal and mine to keep forever.

Thank you for twelve years of pure friendship, the coffee in the mornings, and the scotch in the afternoons.

Thank you for sharing with me those amazing second-hand tales of the US Civil War that your grandfather told you – I wish I had had a tape recorder.

I wanted to tell you that I am now an American Citizen. You would have been so proud of me, had you gotten to know.

I hope that I can age with half the health, grace, class and friends that you had and I will forever miss you.

With all my love,

B, age 40

Cyrus,

“It’s not you, it’s me”, possibly the most clichéd line in history, but it was me. I’m sorry I ended everything. Nothing was wrong. I remember the last time I saw you thinking to myself, “This is amazing, I love him.” I remember telling myself not to forget that moment, because I’d been missing you and I didn’t know if we were right anymore. I’m sorry I pushed you away. I warned you I would. It’s just the way I work; when I’m moving, I push people away until they don’t care for me anymore, that way it doesn’t hurt so much.

But you ignored my pushing. It upset you sometimes, I know, and I’m sorry for that too. I started pushing you away before I even left. I’m so sorry. And then I pushed you away completely. That was a time where I hadn’t seen you in weeks. Missing you was like having my heart clamped. It ate at me inside, but speaking to you and seeing you just fixed me instantly. So why didn’t I wait? I would’ve seen you that next week. Why didn’t I wait? Things could have been so different. But that’s just me, I guess. 

You were my best friend. I knew you for what, a month before I felt that way? I don’t even feel that close with friends I’ve known for years. I felt like I could tell you everything, but I didn’t. I told you in my head, but somehow the words just wouldn’t leave my lips. It was okay, though, because you said it . You used the exact same words sometimes, too. Now and again I wondered if you could see straight into my mind. I loved you on sight. I never believed in that. You were all I thought about after that first conversation, and I know you felt like that, too. 

I looked such a mess that day! Soaking wet, covered in mud and pond weed, no make up, frizzy hair all over, in a wet suit and an over-sized hoodie. I was like that so often with you, and you still loved me. It was always a genuine thing we had. It took us so long before we even held hands. You were so nervous, and so was I. I had never had a relationship where I cared so much about the other person. We took things so slowly but my god, it was worth it. Our first kiss literally took my breath away. I didn’t know people could feel like that. It was like the whole world just disappeared.

Away from you, I felt like part of me was missing. But I thought I didn’t need you, fiercely independent as I am, I could do everything by myself. I was wrong. I did need you. I do need you. It’s been months, and I feel the same as I did that first night when I lost you completely. I cried myself to sleep and spent the evenings curled on a bench, just hiding from myself. I never cry. It broke me.

You won’t speak to me now. I can’t say I blame you. You are amazing. You don’t need me. I guess I will heal, and I’ll move on. But friendship is harder to find than love, and we had both. That won’t happen to me again.

I love you, and I’m sorry.
Jess, age 16

The mother and uncle of 6-year-old Noah Pozner delivered messages at his funeral reflecting on the life of the little boy in Friday’s school shooting, and lessons to draw from his loss. Here they are, in full:
 
   From mother, Veronique Pozner:
 
   The sky is crying, and the flags are at half-mast. It is a sad, sad day. But it is also your day, Noah, my little man. I will miss your forceful and purposeful little steps stomping through our house. I will miss your perpetual smile, the twinkle in your dark blue eyes, framed by eyelashes that would be the envy of any lady in this room.
 
   Most of all, I will miss your visions of your future. You wanted to be a doctor, a soldier, a taco factory manager. It was your favorite food, and no doubt you wanted to ensure that the world kept producing tacos.
 
   You were a little boy whose life force had all the gravitational pull of a celestial body. You were light and love, mischief and pranks. You adored your family with every fiber of your 6-year-old being. We are all of us elevated in our humanity by having known you. A little maverick, who didn’t always want to do his schoolwork or clean up his toys, when practicing his ninja moves or Super Mario on the Wii seemed far more important. 
 
   Noah, you will not pass through this way again. I can only believe that you were planted on Earth to bloom in heaven. Take flight, my boy. Soar. You now have the wings you always wanted. Go to that peaceful valley that we will all one day come to know. I will join you someday. Not today. I still have lots of mommy love to give to Danielle, Michael, Sophia and Arielle. 
 
   Until then, your melody will linger in our hearts forever. Momma loves you, little man.

———————————————

A message read at the funeral of 6-year-old Noah Pozner by his uncle Alexis Haller, of Woodinville, Wash.:

On Friday, Dec. 14, we tragically lost a most beloved member of our family. Noah was a 6-year-old little boy, and he was so dear to all of our hearts.

Words cannot express the unfathomable loss we feel.

Noah was a wonderful son and a loving brother. He was kind, caring, smart, funny, and sometimes even a little mischievous. He liked to tell his sisters that he worked in a taco factory; when they asked him how he got to work, he would give them a funny look as if to say he knew something that they didn’t.

Noah was a little kid. He loved animals, video games and Mario Brothers. He was already a very good reader, and had just bought a Ninjago book at a book fair that he was really excited about reading. He was also very excited about going to a birthday party he had been invited to. It was to take place on Saturday, Dec. 15.

Noah loved his family dearly, especially his mom, his dad, his big sisters Danielle and Sophia, his big brother Michael, and his dear twin Arielle. He called Arielle his best friend, and she was — and always had been.

If Noah had not been taken from us, he would have become a great man. He would been a wonderful husband and a loving father. He would have been a backbone of our family for years to come. His loss, and our loss, are deep indeed.

It is unspeakably tragic that none of us can bring Noah back. We would go to the ends of the Earth to do so, but none of us can.

What we can do is carry Noah within us, always. We can remember the joy he brought to us. We can hold his memory close to our hearts. We can treasure him forever. And all of us, including the family, the community, the country and the world, can honor Noah by loving each other and taking care of each other. That’s what Noah would have wanted.

Noah, we love you so much, we miss you dearly, and we will never, ever forget you.

-AP