The Dick Gawd

Pedestal

My little Raelle,

If you're reading this it means that I'm no longer here in the physical to be able to tell you this myself, however most of this I hope you already know. I hope you already know because I pray that I was able to convey with the time that we had together how much I love you, how much I've always loved you. From the minute I brought you home you were my litte Rae of sunshine. The way you used to wrap your little arms around me when you were younger made every tough day worth it because I knew I was coming home to you your brother and your sister and well you three, were my everything. I had hoped the three of you would grow close and stay close but as you got older, I noticed that though you and your brother grew to be thick as thieves, Gianna grew closer and closer to your mother.

Regardless of what I tried or how many times I tried to mold the three of you together your mother was dead set on pulling the three of you apart. She tried to single you out and drive a wedge between you and your brother but every time she did your brother saw right through her and her attempts always backfired. In fact, it not only backfired it had the opposite affect and always seemed to push the two of you closer together. Each time your brother became even more protective over you and well as far as you were concerned couldn't nobody tell you anything about your big brother. I warned her that her attempts to come between you and Landon would only hurt Gianna in the end, but she refused listen. She wanted Gianna and Landon by her side always but where you were concerned, she always had an axe to grind and for the life of me I could never figure out why.

It hurt me to watch how she treated you in comparison to Gianna and Landon, but I always had hoped that she would act like the woman that I thought I married and love you the way that a mother should love their daughter but as time went by, I could see I was wrong. I know you probably wondered why I stayed and baby girl I want you to know I wanted to leave her a thousand times, even planned it out in my head a few times but every time I had the courage to get ready to, I kept remembering the words of my mother, your grandmother when I first told her that I was going to propose to Ilene. "Son if you chose to lay down with a dirty low-down dog, you're going to have to deal with the consequences that come with that choice. A marriage is not a short time commitment but a lifetime commitment, and a lifetime is a long time to be itchin and dealing with fleas."

See in those days people didn't get divorced they stuck it out, regardless of the issue, regardless of whether both parties were happy or not we stuck it out. In hindsight I can honestly say that that is the dumbest thing my generation or the generations before me could have ever thought but that is how things were, but life is too short to be miserable and unhappy. I should have taken you, your brother and your sister, divorced your mother and high tailed it out of dodge. The three of you would have been better for it. Well, your sister would be, not to mention I know I could have saved you from the unnecessary pain of dealing with your mother's nonsense, and baby girl that, will always be my biggest regret.

Though I will hate myself forever for that my one saving grace is if I know one thing for certain and two things for sure you and your brother are always going to land on your feet because you two always understood. You understood that regardless of what was thrown at you that you could get through anything as long as you two stood together. I know your brother thought he was slick and was under the radar, but I knew of every instance that he laid someone on their hind parts for coming at you wrong. Why he thought he had to hide it was beyond me, but I knew, and I couldn't have been prouder. A big brother is supposed to watch out for and protect his sister. I know I did with your Aunt Liv even though you let her tell it she never needed my help, but I was there, and she knew come hell or high water I would always be there for her. So, trust me when I say watching you and Landon is like watching the reincarnated version of, she and I except your connection is even stronger. Sometimes he would come home, and he would look at you and just know something wasn't right, then he would bend over backwards to try and fix it, but it was never one sided. You didn't play any games about your big brother. You were quiet, and shy but let your big brother have a problem from some little girl and you were on her like white on rice. You two were each others rocks but as much as I loved that about you two it also makes me scared, and that's because you two lean on each other so much that I'm not sure it leaves very much room for any error. You think so highly of each other that I'm not sure that you two remember that you're both still human and as such you are both still liable to make mistakes. Mistakes that could cause disagreements between the both of you should one of you make a choice that the other firmly disagrees with.