A Letter from My Heart

by Kris Jordan
(Denver, CO, USA)

Prompt: Write a letter to some one want to see right now.

Hi Mom,
I wish you were here right now. I know Sandy is really struggling with you being gone. She reminds me a bit of you. I guess you being best friends would cause this. You picked each other for a reason. I feel like she doesn’t see the big picture in this. I know everyone grieves differently, so I’m not trying to judge her grief. I also don’t know what she believes about death, afterlife or anything related to such, so I don’t understand how she’s processing it.
I think about you and how your pain would seep out of your lips like smoke wafting out of a house on fire. It couldn’t be contained. I wonder how often you tried to put out the fire with men and food and drugs and anything else. You know, that evil desire to live at 110 or 0. Lust or Loneliness. Fight or Flight. Drama, natural or created.
Sandy has told me some things about her and some about you that I never knew. I wish you had told me. I wish I learned from you instead of about you through some one else. I guess this is nice for you though, so you can stay protected behind the eyes of another. How you are perceived maybe even better than who you really are. I could see comfort in that.
If my dog could communicate how great I am! I would love if that is all others would see of me. They wouldn’t see my fears, because I am brave when the thunder comes! They wouldn’t see my struggles, because I always give love when I’m cuddled up against. They wouldn’t see me cry, because maybe those tears were an invitation to play, to offer a sacrifice of salt water for the licking, which always results in laughter, giggling and returned playfulness.
Yes, I would like to been seen by all in my dog’s point of view.
I can’t help but think, maybe the world is bigger than the pain. Maybe if you let it go and didn’t hold onto so much hurt, your body wouldn’t have cried out in so much physical pain. More pain than you could bear. And you are strong. The strongest person I have ever met.
And maybe you didn’t have to be so damn strong.
Maybe instead of the pain killers, you could have felt?
Maybe instead of the mania, that false high, you could have lived?
Maybe instead of giving in, you could have received?
I miss you. I miss the life I wanted to live with you. I miss my mom. And I always have.
My grief was here far before you died. But lest you think that’s all I have of you know, I still wear your earring, but I wear it as a necklace so it can be near my heart. I listen to your voice when you encourage me on, when you offer advice to help others.
I think of the intimacy we shared in the last days of your life and how no other relationship can ever be as intimate of that of a parent and child.
You and I shared a single moment in my birth and you and I shared a single moment in your death. No other person on earth had that. That was ours.
Only ours.
I wish you were here right now. I am struggling with you being gone. I think I’m a bit like you…