[untitled Soul project] — Part 4
*to be updated as November continues*
[This will be written as part of National Novel Writing Month #nanowrimo — Check back for story updates as the month progresses. Leave private notes, highlights or words of encouragement and share freely. Mention "@Ernio" in any responses.
Thanks, ♡ e]Sometimes I Wonder If You Love Me Like You Say You Do
Hello Pops,
I’m not sure if this letter will even make it to you in time. Or if you will even bother to open it when you see my name on the return address. You might tear it up or throw it away without giving it a second thought. I would not blame you. I am certain you have moved on with your life and haven’t cared to wonder what happened to us. It was all a lifetime ago.
If I am honest with you and myself, I would not even write you or have any want to find you if I had no other choice. I let go of you a long time ago and I can’t imagine you wouldn’t have done the same by now. There may be anger, there may be resentment or outright hate, and the tables are probably pretty even from both sides of it. But I’m desperate. I’m in dire need and I cannot turn to anyone else.
I’m dying, Pops. And I do believe when it’s a man’s time to go, that’s just the way it is. I have no problems with death like it’s got no problems with me. But I’m not asking for myself. I got a family now. I got a wonderful woman for my wife and we got two kids. One little boy by us and we took on Ramona’s baby girl when she passed last year who we love just the same.
So I’ve got responsibilities. I’ve got to provide for them. And I want to watch them grow and go on to bigger and better things. I would like to be around as long as I can, even if it’s just a little longer, to make sure they are all taken care of.
The doctors say I have trouble with my kidneys. They think it best if I try a kidney transplant, but the list for a donation is long and the wait may be too much. My wife is not a good match. They even checked momma and they said hers were not any better than mine.
Leon was actually the first one to offer up his kidney without even hesitating when we found out. But I suppose you already know that he was not a match because he’s not even my full blood brother. That was a hell of a way of finding out that news after all these years. Momma broke down into a sobbing heap when she told us the story.
Now I’m not saying it makes anything you did to us kids right in any way. I still shoulder all the pain you wrought upon us and I will not spare you any mercy as long as I live. But I guess I have to extend you an ounce of credit for taking on another man’s child as your own. And who knows if he would have had any better a life with his real father, he obviously didn’t ever come to take him back himself.
But blood by both or not, I love Leon more than any other brother could ask for. And now he’s all I got left. And I would not dream of burdening him with my home, though I know he would gladly take it upon himself in my place. That’s just how good a man he has become.
I don’t expect you to come running. I don’t expect you to even answer this letter. I gave up on expecting a thing from you long before the day we left home. But I’m asking you for your grandkids, the only children of your only children. They deserve a good life, a happy home and the love of their father for as long as I can give it.
They are good kids. I can see them going on to college one day like their Uncle Leon. And I know that will just be the beginning. They got a spark in them and I want to give them the chance to have all their dreams. I want to give them everything I can while I got it to give.
And Marieta is a good woman. She’s strong, she’s smart, a great mother and she has turned me into the man I am today. I had lost my way before her and her love straightened me out. It put this beating fist in my chest at ease. I am a loving father, a grateful husband and one happy man. I want for nothing. I already have so much more than I could have asked for.
I am humbled by this. Aging takes its toll on the body. We take longer to heal. We are more prone to break. We ache, moan and suffer more than we ever did when we didn’t give living life a second thought. We seem to only start to appreciate what we’re given when we realize how easily it can be taken.