A Letter to My Son.

What up Man,

I wish you were here. I would have enjoyed your company and your help. I could have used your help with projects I was doing around the house (wall around the deck, working on the shed, landscaping, and helping me cut grass). Not just for the help, but also the talks we had. I wish that you would have talked to me about what was going on in your life instead of keeping everything to yourself. Maybe someone could have advised you differently. You were so secretive, you needed to talk to all of us more, but you thought that you were smart enough to work it out yourself. You weren’t.

It must have been about a month after your funeral before I had enough courage or heart to go to the cemetery. It was rough.  All I saw was a mound of dirt where you laid. It was cold and wet that day. I got out the truck, and about halfway up the hill I fell to my hands and knees and started crying. The pain was so bad I couldn’t move, I just cried. The next week, I tried again, and I got to you - the crying started again. The following week I spoke to you and Uncle Mike since your graves are side by side. It gets a little easier to stand there, but to this day the pain is still there. I still go every week, I know everybody in the neighborhood by name. When I get there now I say a prayer and then we talk. I talk and you listen. One time I had an issue going on, and I was talking to you and God (I was sitting on the ground) asking what should I do and said give me a sign on what to do. Two-minutes later my phone rang, problem solved.  

When you first left us I went through a lot of feelings and emotions. I was numb, hurt, angry and placed blame on some people. I was holding a lot of things in as best as I could. One day at work I started listening to gospel music and it gave me comfort and it relaxed me. Certain songs made me relax, I could find comfort in them. So the music person that I am, I started putting together songs on a cd. That helped me get clarity and ease the pain. Then after awhile, I needed something more so I put together some more songs that inspired me and helped me with my heavy heart. Not all gospel songs work, they have talk to my heart and have certain meaning to me. There is a time when I will listen to gospel music, but I don’t feel it and then all of a sudden I will feel the music. Between the music and our talks, it relaxes me and connects with me down deep in my soul. I continue to make cds. I give them to people, and they say they like it, but they don’t understand that this is my therapy to help me through the pain. I hear these songs, I hear them in my soul. There were times when people would tell me or suggest that I should seek therapy. I tell them, the only therapy I need is to sit there with you, Uncle Mike and God and talk. I can talk all day and tell you guys everything and anything. You guys don’t criticize or talk back and you don’t try to analyze. When I walk away, y’all and the music lets me know what I need to do.

Since you’ve been gone, every day I wake up with a hole in my soul. There is a void, a hollow feeling, and emptiness. Some days it is bad and some days it is worse, but the good Lord wakes me up and it’s a good day. Good day, when I started in the mill there was a gate guard everyday he would greet me and say “good day can’t beat it.” Torrential rain, below 0, snowstorm or a 90-degree day, he would greet me with a “good day can’t beat it.” Every day is good if you are alive. Knowing how bad I feel, I am still thankful even with a heavy heart I had 23 years of life with you and that will always make me smile.