All I Can Say

#109: Letter to N

Dear N,

This morning I told you that I wanted to have a talk with you, and what I meant was that I wanted us to begin talking more. I’ve decided to write you a letter about this because whenever I ask you questions about your life outside this home, you completely shut down and shut me out. That’s not how I want our relationship to be.

It is very normal for a girl your age to want to have privacy, and to want to lead your own life without parental input. But I sense there may be things going on that would be helpful for you to discuss with me. Instead of going around feeling anxious, confused or uneasy, you could talk with me and you would feel better just getting things off your chest. Even if you want someone to simply listen to you and say nothing at all, I can be that person for you. I know that you are in new territory with changing friendships and boys and school, and I can remember what that feels like, what it’s like to be eleven years old. I was there once myself, and I know it’s not easy. There is a lot of turmoil that comes with being your age.

Of course you want to figure things out for yourself, and I want you to do that too, but there must be some way that I can offer you help along the way. As you grow older, you will only find yourself in more complicated social situations, and if you have someone who is removed from it, with more experience and perspective, someone who you can trust to look out for your best interests, you will be able to navigate your way through it all with less difficulty and stress.

I am not saying that you have to share everything with me; I’m not even saying that you have to share anything with me. I just want you to see me as your ally, and as someone who can offer you love and support and good solid advice when you need it most.

So next time you are feeling worried or confused about something, I hope that you will consider the benefits of talking it over with me. Daddy and I love you so much and we want you to be as free and lighthearted as possible at this time of your life — not weighed down with burdens.

Just remember, my sweet girl, that your family is and always will be your safe haven. We love you no matter what, and you can count on us always.

Love,

Mummy

X365, week 13

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Karen, 1989
You had already lost your mother to cancer and I was about to lose mine to the same disease. You were helping me sew up a duvet cover, and as you guided the fabric into the path of the hungry needle, you worked your jaw from side to side, as though this could speed the machine along. Some blockage, some denial, prevented me from comprehending that I could just leave my job for a week to go see my mother. Fuck it, I could, and you told me I should.

82|365
Lin, 1988
You said, “I miss you,” on the phone to me after I had moved to Boston. It was just one of those things people say that they don’t really mean, after all you were a friend’s roommate and I didn’t really know you very well at all. I wanted to say it back to you, to be polite, but the words refused to be spoken. I was unable to say what wasn’t true, and so there was just this painful silence on the line.

83|365
Tom, 2004
There is no way to articulate your charisma. You inspired me, like hundreds of others, to want to be my best, to be the best. You are a gifted teacher. I don’t want you to die.

84|365
Susan, 1977
You were one of two alpha personalities in my cabin, and the dynamic wasn’t working. The other alpha was my best friend, but I discovered that I didn’t have to choose sides. For a while, I assumed the role of go-between, delivering messages and updates, offering my profound empathy to both parties. In time we united, but I had secretly enjoyed the drama of the divided group.

85|365
Kim, 2008
You wouldn’t let us come into the restaurant until precisely 5:00 when you opened. We explained that we wanted to order take-out, along with one Caterpillar roll for N to eat-in while we waited, since she was going straight to her dance class. You sized up N, sitting on her stool, and said, “Oh, she got the long legs!” and made a whoosh sound, sort of like a toilet flushing. You said something in Japanese to your co-worker, raising your hands to your armpits to indicate where my daughter’s legs began, and then the two of you stared her up and down, whooshing together, like two toilets flushing.

86|365
Charlie Brown, 1973
You were my first dog, but you never esteemed yourself as anything less than human. In the boat, you always took up your position in the front seat next to the captain, pointing your pure-bred nose high into the air. Your long brown ears would flap in the wind behind you like pigtails. There was that family legend of the boater who mistook you for my mother, claiming to my father, “Oh, I saw you and your wife out on the lake last weekend,” when it was you, as always, who was next to him.

87|365
Olga, 1998
I still occasionally see you advancing down the road on your way to morning mass. This is reassuring, even though you look as though you carry the weight of the world on your shoulders. Once upon a time we were friendly — especially when JH and I first moved in and our babies were born. But there was that neighborhood squabble, and when we didn’t side with your husband, it was as though we became invisible to you both.

X365, week 12

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Mrs. Sutherland, 1967
I have only impressions of a crisp, white uniform and the smell of sandalwood soap. You were a live-in nurse devoted to the care of newborns, and moved from family to family, staying where you were needed until mother and baby were settled. It seemed to me as though you lived with us for years, but I really have no idea — it could have been a couple of months. I'm certain you were an absolute godsend.

75|365
Jamie, 1976
You were my boyfriend in sixth grade and we used to have kissing contests with our friends, but we could never hold out the longest because we would start laughing. I liked your dark curly hair and your jumpy energy. Once you went to Quebec and brought me back some maple sugar candy. Sure, it was sweet and innocent, but still, I can’t imagine my sixth grade daughter kissing a boy.

76|365
Tim, 1984
Why I had a crush on you, I have no idea. Maybe because you paid attention to me and you had smooth, yellow hair. You were tall and thin and maybe a bit effeminate. Just a momentary diversion early in my junior year.

77|365
Friedy, 1970
You were our housekeeper, moving through the rooms silently and efficiently. You worked the giant steam iron in the laundry room that you would feed the clothes into, and its heavy, menacing rollers pressed the wrinkles out of (or into) the fabric. I liked being with you in the laundry, with its smells of steaming damp cotton, and listening to you talk in your lilting accent. You called me your shadow.

78|365
Lisa, 1978
You were serious about gymnastics and had the ideal physique for it — petite, lean, powerful. You could do walkovers and handsprings when the rest of us were just trying to complete an orderly cartwheel. I had a clear view that time you ran full out down the floor, flicked your body into an aerial but didn’t make it. You kind of bounced on your neck in a horrifying, unforgettable way, and the gym teacher dropped to the floor and held you and started massaging your neck — her second error that day — but you were apparently okay.

79|365
Bill, 1980
The first time I ever saw pot was in a little baggie that you had left on our kitchen table. Your Ralph Lauren cologne wafted in the air in your wake. You liked fashion and pretty things, tradition, fun, drugs and evidently men. The dissolution of your family was heartbreaking, but anyone paying attention could see it coming.

80|365
Tina, 2007
For a tiny girl you have an unusually husky voice, but it suits you. You are focused and adept at karate, much more skilled than your husband, who you constantly seem to be directing. Not only are you more skilled, but you put so much more effort into it than he does. From everybody else you keep your distance, with a wry smile that conceals what you are truly thinking.

X365, week 11

67|365
Henry, 1982
You were the head of the French department and my advisor freshman year. You spent every other year in France with the abroad program and seemed utterly out of your element in upstate New York. Even when you weren’t speaking, your lips were pinched in a constant pucker, ever ready to produce that difficult and dreadful euwww sound. Damn you for rejecting me from the French program, but it pointed me in a new direction — writing — a better fit, and far more useful to me than French.

68|365
Mr. Rumple, 1973
You were a dear friend of my parents who I remember sitting in our kitchen on any given night, having dropped in for a cocktail on your way home from work. You were short of stature, with dark hair parted to the side and a walrus moustache, and you scarcely opened your mouth when you talked. You referred fondly to men in your circle as “that goddamned so-and-so.” As a young child I understood, through you, that friendship was something adults cultivated, too.

69|365
Roberto, 1980
You were about fifteen but looked in body more like twelve, and it was shocking to see you smoking your cigarettes like a fiend. The dark shadows under your eyes suggested you slept poorly, and aged your face by decades. You were from an “important” family in Bogota and sent me brochures on your beautiful, lush country, asking me to come visit you. Your gentlemanly manner with women seemed way beyond your years, but you were like a little brother to me.

70|365
Toby, 1980
Could I have conjured up a more stereotypical Brit? Your pasty complexion was prone to sunburns, and you were tall and thin with straight, fine hair. You even wore black socks with white tennis shoes. But you were an excellent companion that summer in France, ready to go anywhere, game for anything.

71|365
Dorothy, 1983
I thought you hated me, but my mother’s theory was that you hated men, including your son. I don’t actually think this was true, but you certainly seemed bitter and miserable and overwhelmed. Your house was a jumble of clutter and you were constantly working on a part of it, getting one room painted and decorated and perfect amidst the chaos. All those years later you called me and asked if I would reach out to Duncan, who was in some kind of distress, but I was in no position then to help him out.

72|365
Nina, 1980
You were my Quebec exchange student and to be honest I was disappointed when I first saw you at the train station. You looked fat, but it was just that you had large breasts, whereas I was flat as a pancake. You were obsessed with McDonalds, and so independent that you figured out how to take the bus to the nearest one and frequently went there by yourself. You refused to speak any French at my house, but when we switched to your house, we stuck with English because you were more motivated than me, and it was just easier that way.

73|365
Liz, 1988
We were roommates for over three years and developed a kind of symbiosis in which we would alternate paying for things, keeping mental tabs, and when we reconciled we almost always netted out even. You could never laugh without crying. You were voracious for information of any kind and would read newspapers, novels, pamphlets or the backs of food containers with equal absorption. If I were ever on Millionaire and needed to call a friend, you’d be the friend I’d call.

It's Business Time

Thanks to my friends Annie and Phil, your day, too, can be brightened by this.

X365, weeks 9 and 10

56|365
Barry, 2007
You and your wife were playing ping-pong poolside, and G became your self-appointed ball boy (more like ball puppy). Your wife tried to ignore him but you seemed to get a kick out of him, and soon you were teaching him how to play the game — and he was a quick study. Every time G saw you he badgered you to play with him, and on the last day we were at the hotel he swam over to where you were lounging by the pool and said, “Barry, I think we have some unfinished business.” Your name came up the other day and G said, “Oh yeah, the guy who taught me ping-pong — he was funny.”

57|365
Gabi, 1974
You moved into the house behind ours and appeared one day like a mysterious character out of a novel, speaking no English, spelling out your name with a stick on a log since it was unfamiliar and I wasn’t sure I was hearing you correctly. In less than a year you were speaking English fluently and accent-free. You and I became best friends, but it was a tumultuous friendship, and when your family invited me, at age ten, to spend the month of July in Germany, I wanted to go but we were fighting so much I didn’t know if I should. In the end I went, and it was a great, growing experience for me, although I was desperately homesick.

58|365
Mrs. W, 1975
You never really learned English, and seemed so isolated in your home, wearing your odd European sandals, catering to your husband, son and daughter. You were older than any mother I knew, and looked more like a grandmother with crumpled, papery skin. You had a soft spot for me, and when I was so homesick in Germany you tried to comfort me, even while my crying at night was disturbing to your daughter. In the morning, I would line the headboard with tissues so they would be handy for me at night, but at some point during the day you quietly took them away.

59|365
Mr. W, 1975
You frightened me. It may have been a combination of your language and the quality of your voice, but it always sounded like you were angry. One day in Germany when Gabi was engrossed in a book at the breakfast table and was ignoring me, your commands to her in German escalated in force until you eventually snatched the book out of her hands and flung it across the room. While I understood you were only defending me, I was unused to such wrath and ran to the bathroom in tears.

60|365
Bob, 1976
You were Gabi’s teen-aged brother and you were unwilling to adjust to the family’s move to Canada. You learned English, but never shook your thick accent. You made friends pretty easily though, and were always holed up in your room playing Nazareth records and banging on your drum kit. It bothered me that, unlike your sister, you refused to accept Canada as your home, and when we watched the Montreal Olympics, I wanted to know which country you were cheering for, but it was always Germany, “greatest country in the world.”

61|365
Mrs. Wiseman, 1977
You were my seventh grade reading and writing teacher (what we now call literacy). During personal reading time, you used to watch us, and made a big deal out of the fact that I was moving my lips as I read, which was slowing me down. The book everyone wanted to get their hands on that year was Judy Blume’s Forever, about a girl’s first sexual relationship and a giant leap from her Are You There God It’s Me Margaret. You confiscated the school’s one copy to determine if it was appropriate reading and withheld it for what seemed like forever.

62|365
Jeb, 1977
We had assigned bus seats, and you were required to sit between my best friend and me. You tolerated our teasing and gave it right back to us, but it must have been pretty obvious that we both had a crush on you. You were short, with a broad smile and freckles stippling your face. It was something about your neatly rolled-up shirtsleeves that captivated me.

63|365
Michael, 1985
You were an ass. Already in college you looked like an old man, with thinning hair and an unhealthy skin pallor, and when I saw you at reunion, you looked exactly the same. And did I see you on the news attending John Kennedy, Jr’s funeral? It would have been just like you to be at that event, and just like you, too, to be lingering on the sidewalk outside the church in full view of CNN’s cameras.

64|365
Mark, 2008
I know that to do so doesn’t respect your dignity, but I can’t help feeling sorry for you. You are good at what you do, and from what I can tell you are a good worker. But you aren’t valued the way you deserve to be, mostly because of certain personal qualities, like your disheveled appearance and your creepy Ren/Stimpy laugh, heh, heh, heh. I know you’ve had a very tough road and that you struggle every day to keep it together.

65|365
Dave, 2005
You were the least gregarious of the lot, and I was hoping we would be matched up to someone with more immediate personality. You were very quiet the first day or two, but as you settled in I realized how lucky we were to host someone who was older and more mature than some of those crazy young guys. On the way to the soccer fields each morning we listened to BBC radio on NPR, and I wondered if it was comforting for you to hear news of and by your homeland. On your last night with us we took a ferry out to one of the islands to have dinner at a (posh, you said) restaurant, and the next morning when we said goodbye, I recognized the same stillness in you from a week earlier when you had arrived, and I understood how hard these transitions were on you.

66|365
Melody, 1974
Despite my protestations and mortification, my mother signed on to be a Brownie leader. She was called Snowy Owl. There was also Tawny Owl and one other owl I can’t recall. My mother noticed you at our first meeting and told me how much she thought you and I looked alike, but your hair was longer and shinier, and I thought you were much prettier than me.

X365, week 8

49|365
Brian, 1974
You were the only black kid in my fourth grade class, one of only a few in my whole school. One snowy day we came in from recess, shrugging off our coats and stomping out of our boots. Your whole head was glittering with tiny melting snowflakes that were nesting in your hair like jewels. All the kids surrounded you, captivated by your shimmering hair, but when I reached out to touch one of the crystals, you slapped my hand away.

50|365
Mihail, 1974
You emigrated from Czechoslovakia and looked sort of like Alfred E. Newman, but not as cheerful. One attention-getter you were famous for in our class was flipping your eyelids up so that they were inside out. I found the raw insides of your eyelids so repulsive I couldn’t look at you after I saw you do it the first time. It was just so wrong.

51|365
Jenny Lee, 2007
Every six weeks or so when my eyebrows start to drag my face down, I come to you to shape them. First you spread on the hot wax, yanking it off quickly (quick is best) and pressing your thumb into my throbbing skin to defuse the sting. After the wax, you tweeze, maneuvering around me from left to right and back, measuring along my nose with your eyebrow brush, sucking on a mint or a cough drop. You take your time, scrutinizing and refining your work, and I have come to think of you as an artist.

52|365
Cheryl, 1976
Your mother had teased-up hair and wore provocative, leopard print patterns on her curvy frame with high-heeled slippers. You and your sisters each had your own bedrooms, decorated in different pastel shades, with shag carpeting so long and luxurious that you actually raked it as part of your chores. I was not really your friend — more a friend of a friend — and I always felt grateful to be invited for a sleepover at your house, where we could raid your endless supply of chips, pop, candy and ice cream. One day when we were teenagers, I drove past you with my mother and she commented that you were built like a brick house, which I understood was a compliment even though it didn’t sound like it.

53|365
Karen, 1979
I met you on the first day of high school in the cafeteria. I thought you seemed much older than me, with your clutch purse tucked neatly under your arm. You had just been fitted with braces, and you were getting used to the feeling of them, repeatedly repositioning your upper lip over the jagged brackets. It was sort of charming, the way you did this, and I found myself contracting my upper lip over imaginary braces just like you.

54|365
Julie, 1982
We were heady, off to a party at one of your sister’s friends’. It was my first visit to New York and we had already had several drinks in a bar near the apartment where we were staying. When we got to the party, I realized that I had left my purse in the cab and was beginning to unravel with what it meant to be in the city without money or ID. Then there was a buzz at the door, and miraculously it was the cabbie returning my purse, which his next fare had found on the seat and handed up to him.

55|365
Tracy, 1982
You were a major personality — large, loud, absolute. You invited us to stay in your parents’ New York apartment for a weekend away from college, and it was what I forever after thought of as archetypal Manhattan with its accents of glass, chrome, leather, fur and black-and-white tile. The story was that your parents, both actors, had played the parents in the movie Hair, although they had divorced long before the film. It’s difficult to describe — I always felt vaguely afraid of you, but at the same time, utterly protected by you.

X365, week 7

42|365
Sharon, 1972
You and your twin sister Karen wore your blonde hair back in ponytails with bangs straight across your foreheads. Others had difficulty telling you apart, but I discerned that you had an edgier look; your sister was softer. I remember those stylish floor-length prairie dresses, complete with laced-up midriff, that your mother allowed you to wear, even though they were completely inappropriate for school. You smelled oddly of saltine crackers.

43|365
Francis, 1978
You moved into our neighborhood, and pretty soon you were “going with” my best friend Diane. She told me all about stuffing her retainer into her back pocket before making out with you in the bushes behind her house, a situation that was unfathomable to me. She was so besotted she painted NIKE on a rock and kept it next to her bed (the first time I ever saw the swoosh was on your feet). I was ambivalent about you because you were ushering my friend into a new phase that, for my part, I was plainly not ready for.

44|365
Tacky, 1974
I couldn’t imagine why, but you noticed me. You were linked to the most popular girl in school, and you would walk with your arms around each other’s waists, your fingers entwined in belt loops. I was two years younger, but you would sometimes talk to me on the playground, telling me I had pretty eyes, and I was thrilled but frozen — too shy to keep up my end of the conversation. You had long wavy hair and a tough reputation, and when I casually mentioned your name (you were Greek) to my older sister, she thought it was hysterically funny that I actually knew someone named Tacky.

45|365
Alexis, 1976
I was almost eleven when you were born, my first niece, and until I had my own, everything I knew about babies I knew from you. I was babysitting one night when you were about two and you woke up crying, which was unusual. I rushed into your room and found you standing in your crib holding your arms out to me to pick you up. I pulled you out and you held onto me so tightly, sniffling and hiccupping into my neck as I rocked back and forth comforting you, and I had never before felt so needed.

46|365
Sandra, 1973
You were a friend of my parents and you would cruise to our island on your boat and tie up for the weekend. It was so exciting when we would see a boat coming into our bay, because it meant people and parties and good times, even for us kids. Your every movement seemed so purposeful, and you spoke in a near whisper, as though you were in a library at all times. I adored you and whenever I could I would sit below in your galley and just listen to your calm voice.

47|365
Philip, 1976
You were the imaginary little brother that I took care of. I imagined that we were orphans and were living in a boarding house where our meals were provided, but otherwise we were on our own. For a couple of years I escaped into this running narrative whenever I was alone, and it was strangely soothing to imagine this world in which I was the adult.

48|365
Anne, 1995
You knocked on my door and introduced yourself, gushing that you had heard I was pregnant, too. We joked that, even though my due date was six weeks before yours, maybe our babies would be born on the same day, and it seemed like a miracle when that’s exactly what happened. It was a kind of miracle for me too when I would drag my sleep-deprived body out of bed to feed my baby at some ungodly hour. I would look down the street and see the light on in your house and know that you were doing the same thing, and sharing those wearisome middle of the night feedings with you meant so much to me.

X365, week 6

35|365
Sylvia, 1987
At my first real job in advertising I was a true novice, while you were at that junior level where you had a lot of pressure and responsibility — but without the title or much money. You worked hard and had a lot of credibility, but you had an unfulfilled artistic side — like maybe you were a poet or a sculptor at heart. You caused an uproar when you abruptly dropped out to become a bicycle messenger, and then I would see you in the elevators in all your gear, looking tanned and fit and happy.

36|365
Linda, 1987
You were in your forties, an account executive of an earlier vintage, and I (at 21) couldn’t figure out why you would still want to work in advertising. So old school, you barked out your last name when you answered your phone, and smoked menthol cigarettes at your desk. At Easter, you gave everyone these special chocolate eggs you made from scratch. I nibbled on it mindlessly through the day, and when you asked if you could have some of mine, saying that you hadn’t saved one for yourself, you were really just checking to see how much I had eaten, and couldn’t believe I had almost devoured it.

37|365
Nicole, 1975
You moved to my town from Trinidad and had hair so blonde it was white. Occasionally, you invited me to your house for lunch on a school day, without any adults to watch over us, and you made us grilled cheese and chocolate milk all by yourself. Your mother was French and strict and worked full time, and I remember you constantly on the phone with her, telling her where you were, asking if you could stay for dinner, or to sleep over. I always felt so serious and tense when you were on the phone with your mother speaking in your combination of French and English, but her answer was usually, Non.

38|365
Paul, 1988
You were my boss at the remote and esoteric library software company where I wrote documentation manuals. I am snoring just writing about this time of my life. But you were interesting, with your pock-marked complexion and your enormously wide-hipped wife (who you referred to as “your bride”), your affected, high-brow tendencies, and the fact that you were having a fairly well-known affair with a young guy who worked in another department. I only lasted there about a year and never learned how any of this resolved itself, but I was pretty sure there was no fairy tale ending for you and your bride (nor for your two beautiful, tow-headed boys).

39|365
Sister Mary, 1979
You were among the dwindling band of nuns who presided over my high school, with your navy blue habits, shapeless clothing and sensible shoes. I can never forget how you tormented me early one morning when I was sitting in front of my locker with my legs extended out into the hallway, studying for a test. You were marching down the hall, tiny and bulldog-like, with your habit framing your oatmeal-colored face. You started to walk toward me and I looked up, expecting you to say something, but you didn’t — you just kicked my outstretched legs swiftly, then moved on without a word or backward glance, your hands knotted into fists at your sides.

40|365
Miss McDonald, 1979
You were my typing teacher and had the most unfortunate physical characteristics. You had eczema, or some inflammation all over your face, so that it seemed you were constantly itching, peeling and flaking. You probably couldn’t bathe regularly due to your skin issue, and you wore your long, greasy hair in a low ponytail down your back. The back of your head I remember best because you walked up and down the aisles of desks, with your hands clasped behind your back as we typed away, tickety, tickety, tickety, ding.

41|365
Lynne, 1984
On the surface, you were everyone’s best friend. You had a talent for sensing people’s hopes and fears, and that made you a natural manipulator. Nobody could ever really know you because you were in constant disguise, effortlessly adapting to the needs of the situation. It was difficult to watch you spiraling out of control because you weren’t a bad person; but you felt no obligation to the truth.

X365, week 5

27|365
Billy, 1981
You were the alpha male in our little pack, the boyfriend of my best friend. You had a winning smile and spectacular self-confidence. I lost touch with you when I went to a different school in sixth grade, and only heard about you through the grapevine after that. After celebrating a basketball victory one night — I think you had just graduated from high school — you caught a ride home in the wrong car, which turned out to be a horrifyingly fatal mistake.

28|365
Roddy, 1982
You were my friend’s older brother, and everyone idolized you. You were smart, good-looking, athletic, funny, well liked. I often imagine you on that two-lane highway late at night driving up to your family’s cottage. You were all of eighteen and must certainly have been driving too fast, oblivious to the danger that cut short your brilliant life.

29|365
Jamie, 1988
We went to school together, but since you were a couple of years older, we were never really contemporaries until we were in our twenties. You invited me to a boxer shorts party you were having, and I was one of the few people who actually showed up in costume. You died a horrible death: golf course, summer storm, bolt of lightning. They said it entered your body through your mouth.

30|365
Joey, 1990
You were the last of eight children, and you had that even-tempered, amiable nature youngest siblings seem to have. You were more composed than your crazy older brothers, more centered. One summer day when you were in your early twenties you went out on your sailboard and never returned. They found the board, Joey, but they never found you.

31|365
Allison, 1993
My sister, you went like these others — much too early. You had the most generous spirit I have ever known, but you also expected so much from others — usually more than they could deliver. I miss you every single day, but especially on holidays, which you loved the way a child does. I wish so much you could have known my children.

32|365
Kate, 1999
Most heartbreaking of all, perhaps, because you were only six when you died, and you had spent a third of your life sick. You thought of yourself as brave, and you were; you were a spitfire. You had a special friendship with one of the older boys on our street and he used to walk you up to the store for an ice cream. I think about you frequently, what you might have been, the girl you would have grown into.

33|365
Jennifer, 2001
I’m not sure when I saw you last, but we had to have been teenagers. And I’m not sure exactly when you died, but I know it was breast cancer and that you left behind young children. You were my younger sister’s best friend growing up. I remember your big, toothy smile, so much like your mother’s, and how at the end of one summer you suddenly emerged with this cute little figure that I envied.

34|365
Allan, 1961
I never knew you, and in fact, if you had lived, I would never have been born. You were my mother’s first husband, and you died so unexpectedly of a heart attack at 33. She was pregnant and you were building your house together. She described for me the moment when true, pure grief leveled her: she pulled back the shower curtain and saw your dark curly hairs clinging to the porcelain from your last shower.