Hi Grandpa, its me Rafe

Dear Grandpa,

I'm sorry that this is my first letter to you, ever. I don't write letters much and stories wouldn't seem appropriate to bring to you at this point. I feel bad using you, my only grandpa, for a writing contest, but I need someone to tell about what I'm going through. I also need that person to be sufficiently far away and you're impossibly far from me.

I know I'm not the first person to feel this way, I just need to vent and not have someone say everything is going to be fine. I need to let the fear, the self-pity and bit of anger this issue has been holding within me to get out.

He said the six words. Well he said more, but the others are semantics. Really, desperately important semantics that are the reason he said the six words to me. They explain so much more than the six little words, but the six are the message. The semantics are the vehicle, the history and value of the message: Will you be my best man?

I said yes. Of course, I said yes. But let's be honest, I was dying to say yes. I'm so happy I said yes. I've known him for what seems like forever. My life before we met at the New Year’s Day party is all a blur. He's been my friend ever since. We've been through so much together. One and a half schools, years of life, absolute domination on the badminton courts in middle school, hundreds of hours playing ping pong, then killing each other in call of duty in my cold basement, quizzing each other on the credits of random people scrolling by after Marvel movies and too many nights eating alone as our dads talked to other adults at the bar during the summer. There's so much history. So many days spent together. So many amazing memories.

Then I tried to start writing the speech. I have occasional, unpredictable, hard to control and annoyingly bad stage fright, so I thought if I started writing the speech with ten months to go I'd be good. So far, I have an opening that I'm not sold on and then nothing. I can't think of anything. All our little adventures and experiences seem to disappear when I reach for them. When I want to share them with the people he loves most, I can't recall anything more than my silliness and his level headedness. Actually what's in the second paragraph of this letter is the best I've done of revealing our past over the past four months since I've started trying to write the speech. So I guess there's still hope.

Now onto the speech itself. I want it to be funny, yet personal. Kind and heartfelt. To show how much I care about him and his amazing fiancé and how magical I hope the rest of their lives are, but also be relatable and not go more than three minutes. It's a lot to fit into my first speech ever. I'm sort of very terrified that it'll be shit. That it won't mean enough. That it won't be funny. And if I try to be funny, people won't laugh. That it'll be bad and he'll regret picking me. That I'm not good enough.

Walking home from clubs when I strikeout, or just not feeling like a boogie, I watch 'best best man speech' videos on YouTube. Holy cow are some people great at not only writing speeches, but speaking. He deserves a best man speech of that level and I desperately want to deliver it. I hope I'm good enough. I hope I come up with the write letters in the right order with the right tone and pauses and right stories and topic and wishes and heart. I guess I'd hope that my speech and performance deserve to be on YouTube under 'best best man speeches' although I'd die of embarrassment if it actually did.

Thank you. I really needed to write you this letter. It feels like I've just sneezed after needing a good one for weeks. I'm going to keep working on my speech. I have years of experiences to pull from and the right ones will come to me. Will it be a perfect speech, probably not. But our friendship isn't perfect, and he still asked me to be his best man. I will overcome enough of my stage fright, with multiple drinks on deck for assistance, and I'm going to make his mom laugh and cry. My mom will probably cry, too. I can't wait.

Thanks for always being there for me, grandpa. I miss you every day even if you're not on my mind. I know it’s not photography, but I like to think you'd have liked my writing.

Love your youngest grandson and an excited best man,

Rafe