Do It Jakey! //Jake Kiszka

40. BIG and EVERYWHERE

Hi, everybody! This story is ending here, but it will have a sequel, if you want to check it out :) This is the last proper chapter, there will be a bonus one after this, that is already published. With that being said, here you go:

Hi mum, it's Jamie.

It's January 30th. Today I turn 24 and it marks 24 years since you've been gone, the same age as I am today.

I never wrote you letters, even though I've read every single thing you wrote for me, and dad let me read his letters too. I watched every movie, listened to every song, read every book you quoted for me. And I loved every single one of them. Thank you.

Today feels important, I don't know why. Maybe because I start living when you stopped. It may be that.

Dad is doing great. Greta Van Fleet is amazing. As I think you know, I play music too. My passion is the violin. Dad taught me when I was little, he learnt while recording one of their albums, many years ago, and I remember I was fascinated by the sounds it made. And since I was in high school, they started bringing me on tour with them. I get on stage when they call me, for a few songs, sometimes grandpa joins us with the armonica too. And it's just like magic.

I love sharing solos with dad on stage. We connect in a way that seems surreal, I know what he is thinking, and the same holds for him. We are one with our instruments, and one with each other.

I want to thank you for that wish you made come true, when I was four. I remember I heard Uncle Josh talking with dad, saying he should find someone else, move on, as you told him. And I wished for it, in my room, hoping you could hear me.

Then, just a week later, we met Baz. She is amazing, I really love her. She moved closer to us because of her family, and dad started going out with her often. I think you know they are married now.

She can't have kids, and they decided to adopt four. Alex is just my age, then Ana and Dani are a year younger than us, twins. And then there is Lara. She is so special. She is much younger than all of us, only eight years old.

And Lara is sitting at the table with me, right now. I think she is writing something for her school, about our family. She asked me to show her photos of you, I don't know why, and then she spent hours looking at all the pictures I have of our crazy family, starting from the ones with you and dad when you were so young, ending with one we took only last week.

I don't know why, but Lara is asking me where members of our family come from, starting from our siblings, then parents and grandparents. She then asked me to tell her some countries in the world, and I told her the first ones I could remember. Japan, Australia, Brazil, China, Russia.

She keeps saying that our family is BIG and EVERYWHERE, she is writing it down in all caps, that makes me smile. But she is right. We are BIG and we are EVERYWHERE. Do you know that between our family, we probably cover half the world? It's crazy to even think about it.

She is also saying that I need to tell you everything about me, in this letter, because you could have missed something about my life. I don't even know what to tell you, I already talked about our family and my music.

I guess I do have to say that I ended up being a nerd just like you, and I chose to study math in college. Isn't it so fascinating? Dad always jokes saying that he rejects me as his child, but I know he deep down loves me.

I think I got something from each one of the people around me, the ones who helped me grow. Everyone was surprised when I started getting tall. No one expected that, since I was born a little bit earlier, and you and dad weren't surely Chewbacca from Star Wars. But Uncle Dave and Uncle Sam always say that I got the good gene from them, and I'm not complaining.