Letters

Paper Heart

The last time we spoke, we could read each other's minds. We quite literally finished each other's sentences (and sandwiches – especially when we watched Frozen). We've known each other for almost a decade, been inseparable for half of that and lived just three kilometres away for a tenth. And yet, the closer we are physically, the further away you seem.

A year and a half ago, you told me you loved me. You gave me a piece of your heart in a little heart-shaped card, let me hold it in my hands and tuck it in a pocket next to my own heart, to read whenever I felt lonely. I still have it - did you know that? It sits in its envelope in my cupboard, in a photo album I call my ‘Goodbye Book’.

It's a sad thing to have, a Goodbye Book. It means that I've had to say goodbye to a lot of people I definitely didn’t want to say goodbye to. I'm not sure how many people are in my Goodbye Book, and I haven't quite figured out if that's good or bad. Maybe I have too few, but then again, maybe I have too many.

You're probably wondering why I'm writing this and to be honest, so am I.

I’m tired.

I’m tired of being the first one to reach out; I organise the outings, I plan all the adventures, I try and fix the damage Time and Distance and Circumstance have done to our friendship and yet, as soon as I hand the reins to you, all I hear is deafening silence.

So, as much as it pains me to admit it, I need to move on.

I've been by your side for so long now that the future is starting to feel like a chasm beneath me. All I can do is dangle dangerously over the edge, reaching for your hand, begging you to pull me up into your security because I know I can be safe with you.

But you don't seem to realise I'm dangling. Either that, or you don't want to pull me up. I refuse to believe that. You're not a bad person, you're just annoyingly oblivious to the people around you.

This is why I think it's time for me to take my fall. Thankfully, the bottom doesn't look as scary as it did a year and a half ago. Now, there are some faces of people that I know, if I ask them to, will catch me.

I only wish I had realised sooner that the piece of your heart you gave me – the one that loved me – was exactly that.

It's time for me to let go.

Yours

Always, Forever, Whenever

I don't know who you are, but you would love him.

Well, you would love the person he truly is, not the angsty teen he pretends to be whenever anyone's watching. The boy who knows all the words to the cheesiest songs and sings them in the shower when he thinks no one’s listening; the gentleman he is at the table and waiting by a door, holding it open; the caring soul that pulls a blanket over his sort-of-sister as she falls asleep on the couch. I love that boy – your boy – but I’m not his mother and right now, that’s exactly what he needs.

You could argue that being a mother is simply someone who cares, but you’d be wrong.

From the day they are born, children love their mothers in a certain, utterly irreplaceable way. Not even fathers are loved that way – not to say that the love is any less strong. It’s simply different.

A parent’s love is always – a mother’s love is forever. Same meaning, different words.

So, can you imagine how I feel, loving your son through his façade but knowing he will never love me the same way he loves someone he hardly knows? It sounds selfish, but we know when someone is hurting and needs that certain type of love – a forever love – to make everything better.

The problem isn’t that I’m not that person, and cannot give him that kind of love, it’s that nobody can.

Every time I see him shut down again after I’ve caught him doing something kind or even just genuinely smiling, my heart breaks a little more because it means that he’s tried. He’s been crying out for that forever love for so long and never received it, so his solution is to pretend like he never needed it in the first place.

You’re probably wondering why I’m writing this and to be honest, so am I.

I want to love your son the way you should be able to, and I want him to love me just as fiercely in return. I hate that he thinks he needs to hide his emotions because it makes him stronger, when all it does is make me feel so terribly guilty. He’s surrounded by all this love he has no idea what to do with and yet craves so completely. I can do nothing but wait for him to realise that he doesn’t have to be alone anymore, that he was never alone, and people love him. Just… not in the way he was hoping for.

I’ll never be able to love him the same way you did, but by God, that's not going to stop me from trying. Out of all the people in this world, I don’t think anyone deserves someone trying – not to make themselves feel better, but just to love him, selflessly – more than he does.

And let me promise you right now, I may not be his mother but if anyone hurts your boy - our boy – there will be hell to pay.

Your son is going to do wonderful things someday. He won’t ever forget you, and I’ll never try to replace you. But he needs love, and you aren’t here to give it.

So, let me try, okay?

Let me love him in my own way. Not a forever, or even an always – a whenever. Whenever he needs you, I’ll be here.

Don’t worry, I’ve got this.

His other 'mum'

A Coward's Wish

If anyone’s reading this, it means that I lost my last battle. And I am sorry.

Not because I'm going to die – I know you all think of me as a bitter old geezer. But because of all the battles I have fought in this life, I'm about to lose it to a glorified cold.

The doctor came into my room yesterday and told me I will die soon. He asked if I wanted to stop treatment, and of course, I said, “no”. What monster looks into the eyes of Death and waits? Who reconciles their life in the face of It? Nobody wants their life to end – they just want their suffering to stop.

But I'm not suffering. I know what true hurting feels like, and this is not – cannot – be it. I have lived in this world for almost a century and experienced so much pain, yet I know people who have gone through more. And now here I lie in this bed, within the four walls of the room I have been in for God knows how long and write this letter to you – my family.

I had children when I was too young to be ready for them.

I tried to follow Dad's example – he was a good man; kind and gentle. Never hit me or Mum or my brother, and you'd sooner see him flip his wig than hear him swear. I remember asking Mum why he wasn't around more, and she would always just brush me off with some fake excuse about being in the war. I believed them until I experienced fatherhood myself.

It's a strange thing to have a human entirely dependent on you and one other person. You are solely responsible for their wellbeing – making sure they eat, drink, bathe and are alive at the end of the day. It happened all at once. It felt like one day I was at war, and then I was back and had a baby – a daughter. Suddenly, I knew what Dad would’ve felt like. Because not only did I have to take care of her, but I had to make sure that she turned out alright, you know? I held Maggie in my arms, all tiny and crying, and realised how easily she could break.

I started to distance myself as Dad had done. I figured he had done a good enough job, so I should try and be like him. Lynn begged me to stay and I tried, I really did. But I loved you too much and I didn’t want to mess up. Then I came home one day when Maggie was still young, and she barely recognised me. It stung more than I could ever admit.

She grew up and had kids of her own. And I missed Angie’s birthday because no one called to tell me. I thought to myself ‘why bother? I’ve already fucked up enough with my own kid to the point where they don’t even tell me when my granddaughter’s being born, so why would they want me in her life?’. I became that bitter old fart that would only call on Christmas to complain.

You’re probably wondering why I’m writing this and to be honest, so am I.

Here I sit, tailbone screaming and an oxygen mask over my mouth, fashioning this letter in my mind for you, becoming the very same monster I was afraid of at the start.

I am going to tell you a secret, now – I am a coward.

I left Lynn and Maggie and Angelica because I was afraid of stuffing up.

I don’t talk to any of you because I’m scared of what you’ll say to me, and what I would say back.

I’m so damn frightened of this whole thing – I’m waiting for Death but I’m petrified because I’m alone, and it’s my fault.

I wish I’d stayed.

I wish so badly that the emptiness feels like a gaping hole in my chest. There’s no love in my life anymore, just me and the stupid TV sitcom reruns and my hoping for someone to come into my life and just stay, even though I never did.

I struggle to wake up because who cares whether it will be the last time? I miss having people to wake up to that love me. I miss going to bed excited to wake up the next morning.

I miss wanting to be awake.

I’m not religious and have never been. But looking back at it all, I’m starting to wish I was, just so that I don’t feel so powerless. Maybe if I pray to someone, I might get a nice afterlife. Or even better, a reincarnation, so I can have another chance to do better. But whatever happens, at least it’s not my choice to fuck up again.

I have lived a long life with many regrets, but I have come to accept that I will never be able to fix them within the short time I have left and the light years of distance between us.

So, whilst I am petrified, I am also ready to start again.

I love you. All of you. So, so much. I think of you all and a smile breaks over my face and tears run down my cheeks like ‘bittersweet’ liquified because I was so damned blessed and never realised it.

I wish I’d loved you the way I was too scared to sooner, because now it’s too late.

And I wish that when I can no longer fight to open my eyes, and have to leave you for a final time, my last thoughts are not of sadness and fear, but of you.

Always you.

Grandpa