I’m known somewhat for speaking my mind, my not so veiled opinions strike up feelings in many and apathy in some. But with all the things I can and have been called, the only name that has ever mean a thing to me is the title “Dad.” The world can have all the rest since that’s all I need.
I really am a lucky guy, I have kids that are not only genuinely clever and kind but they are infatuated with one another. They constantly find ways to be together and play and that has taken a great deal of stress out of my life. However, as many of you know I have one son who passed a few years ago, an event that I will never fully recover from, nor should I.
I wrote this letter two years after he passed away and I felt that sharing it with you would be appropriate seeing as Memorial Day is upon us. If you take anything from this it is my hope that it would be that among many things, the most important thing to me is my family.
-May 13 2016-
Dear Jon,
I don’t know what I’m supposed to be writing. They say when something is welling up inside it’s best to just let it out. If I’m being honest I don’t care what anyone else says, I’m broken and it’s time I stop trying to work on myself and just take the time to hurt. Two years, that’s how long ago you left, how long it’s been since I lost you. I don’t know if that’s fair to say because I don’t know if you’re somewhere else. I can’t say “I know” there’s something after this life, I won’t even say “I believe” that there is. All I know is that I want there to be. Desperately, like a child feeling the string of a balloon slip from its fingertips. I’m not mad at the balloon as it floats away completely indifferent to the broken heart it is leaving behind. It’s not the balloon’s fault.
Now that you’re gone everything is different. The second you left my whole worldview changed, it’s been obvious to those still near me. They ask each other about me in whispers, unsure exactly what it is I believe. You and I both know that it doesn’t matter, they don’t know what it’s like. The cool touch of a casket on their fingertips, the guilt, how something so light would be the heaviest things you’ll ever carry. But I found my peace in the suffering. A moment of clarity where I finally realized a universal truth, that in the scheme of things, I truly do not matter. That’s a beautiful thing because I now know that even though my existence is entirely, cosmically inconsequential, I am capable of doing things that do matter, that are consequential. I want to live in a a world where old men plant trees. That is the type of world where I do matter.
Money, possessions, status are all worthless. You taught me that. You taught me that all that matters is making the lives of others worth living. Since the day you left all I have ever wanted was to make you proud, that if you still somehow existed somewhere you would be proud to call me your dad. I started writing because of you, I started caring because of you, I started truly loving because of you and I started living… because of you. I love you, I love you, I love you, son. Not a day goes by where I don’t tell you that and I mean it more every time I say it.
No matter what truth exists in the universe, whether there are gods or whether we get to meet again, I know that some part of you is out there. Some light beams that reflected off your perfect cheeks still continue their journey outward and upward into infinity. If you’re out there son, I will find you, no matter what.
I’m sorry I didn’t mail this letter. You see, I don’t know your new address.
-Dad
Dear Jon…
Nathaniel Woodward