Thursday – A Letter Send to Heaven, in The Universe At Large, by way of General Delivery

[ninanevermore]

Today on my drive into work, I was thinking about the letter I wrote and sent to Heaven yesterday, since I happened to be close to where it needed to be mailed from. The funeral home I did my educational observation at just happened to be the one adjacent to the cemetery where the wife of my childhood friend, Mark, was buried last May.

When I wrote about Kellie's passing last spring, and later about my mixed feelings toward her because of what became of a mutual friend of ours I'll call Tara, I realized and obvious fact that never occurred to me before: Tara is an alcoholic. Kellie made a convenient scapegoat for me, but my anger at her was misplaced. It was easier to hate Kellie than to mourn Tara, so that's what I did. Now that Kellie is dead, I felt a need to make peace with her that I never felt when she was alive. Since a face to face conversation is not possible, I wrote her a letter.

I have strict rules about letters going to Heaven. For one, they can't be typed. Instead, they must be written by hand on paper, because the words must flow directly from you onto the page, like tears onto a handkerchief. Second, there only are a couple of ways to mail them. The first is to set it one fire, but my preferred method is to place it on the grave of the person it is for, and let the wind and the rain deliver it. Either way, the words are sent out across the Universe to do their work. Since my letter was already sent yesterday, I have done my best to remember what I wrote and recreate it. It read something like this:

March 19, 2008

Kellie,

First, I hate to disturb you, but I need to get this out in order for me to move on. I want to say up front that I have a great deal of admiration for you, and am so sorry for that your life was cut so short. I hope and pray that you are at peace.

You may or may not remember that we met through our mutual friend, Tara, when we were teenagers. I was friends with her for several years, and it seems to me that you were for several months, at least. When I met her, she was a fun and sweet girl, and no one who knew her could say her name without smiling. Still, those who knew her always sensed that Tara was the sort of person who needed protecting from herself, and we went to great lengths to do this. When she met you and your friends you didn't feel the need to protect her like her older friends did. You and your friends gave her first drink and you smoked a joint with her, which probably didn't seem like that big of a deal at the time.

I now realize that Tara was an alcoholic in waiting, and so her first drink was her undoing. The girl whose name made everybody smile became the girl whose name made everybody sneer when they spoke it. The person she became was so unpleasant that none of us wanted anything to do with her, and you and I both turned our backs on her.

While I also cut her out of my life, I guess the reason I felt so angry with you was because at the time I thought that since you helped create the monster she became, you ought to have helped clean up the mess. I now realize that life, and people, are more complicated than that. I suppose that person was inside her all along, waiting for addiction to bring her out to the forefront. It was only a matter of time. I can't hold you responsible because if you had not given Tara that first drink, eventually someone else would have. A person can only be protected from them self for so long. Like any kid approaching adulthood she was naturally going to sample what the world has to offer, and through some quirk of her personality or biology her life was destined to come derailed at that point. Your role in her downfall was not a matter design, but fate.

Please understand that the Tara we both walked away from was not the Tara I knew before. The drunk Tara, the stoned Tara, the Tara who was such a tramp that your husband's best friend, R.Y. declared he "wouldn't screw her even if he was using someone else's dick," was not the person I cared about. You and everyone else in the room laughed when he said that about her, but I remember feeling so angry about what she had come to that I almost had to walk out of the room.

What you didn't know was how much I loved the person she used to be. When my mother died, and my other friends didn't know what to say and so said nothing, she was the only one who called me on the phone to tell me how sorry she was and that she loved me. She brought me a gift at my mother's funeral, a silly little stuffed toy that I still have and that absorbed many of the tears I would cry over as I worked through my grief. She was like a kid sister to me, and hearing everyone talk about her like that hurt more than you can imagine. I chose to direct my anger toward you because it was easier than admitting that I missed, and was mourning, that sweet girl. Now that you are gone and I am a little older and wiser, I need to forgive you and finally let myself mourn Tara (though I hear she is still alive in the world somewhere, just not as a person I would want in my life).

Please understand that I have tremendous respect and admiration for you. If I cross paths with your children in the coming years and they ask about you, I will tell them the exact same thing that they will hear from everyone else: that you were smart, and beautiful, and that you lived your life and faced your death with a great deal of dignity and grace. I will tell them that they should be proud of you and proud to be your children, because these things are true. My heart aches for them that they will have so few memories of you, and that you did not get to see them grow up. As a motherless child myself, I have a lot of insight on the impact that your loss will have on their lives.

I'll close this letter by stating that I need to forgive you and wrote this letter so that I can. I now ask your forgiveness, in return, for my unjustified anger toward you and for my need to bother you with it from beyond the grave.

Sincerely,

Nina

I folded the letter up, and before I drove away from the cemetery yesterday evening I tucked it in next to her grave. When they mow the lawn over where she lays, I want it shredded in the blades. I want the wind to catch the tattered pieces and spread them for miles around. I want the rain to soak the pieces through, to smudge the ink and wash my words to where Kellie is. When all this happens, I truly hope she can forgive me. In the meanwhile, I can finally shed tears for Tara, and few for Kellie, as well.


* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * # * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Comments

[jenelycam.livejournal.com]

*HUGS NINA TIGHT*

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

Funny how we can be haunted by something for so long, and never even realize it. *hugs Dawn back*

[adamant-turtle.livejournal.com]

I'm sure Kellie knows what's on your mind and in your heart already :-)

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

We weren't close. I have a great deal of affection for her husband, having grown up with him, but I was always cool toward Kellie because of the circumstances surrounding Tara. It's funny, but the need to make peace with her kind of took me by surprise.

[adamant-turtle.livejournal.com]

I think wanting to make peace, overall, is something that comes with age, wisdom, and the ability to look back with some more objective perspective...