Fear

Honesty and Letters

Letters; I didn't send you many, be it because I had nothing to tell or inform you of, or rather didn't want to tell you, I sent you very few.

For why, I do not know. Maybe it was due to my confusion, or the realization that you had left, still, had not yet set.

I remember the first time it took a hit, the first time I realized that my time with you was growing short. You were mad at our sister, she would not answer your questions. I remember very clearly what you told her and the panic it caused to me as your sibling.

"I'll be gone by October; humor me."

Maybe it was then that it hit me you were leaving, that you were going away and would not be seen for many months on end. You were not allowed your phone or your belongings, nor did you mind. The path you had chosen was one you looked forward to.

When we went to drop you off, our father told us to hug you and tell you goodbye. I did wish to hug you, I wished it would never end. But that first ever willing hug read in stone that this was goodbye. I did not hug you the second time we saw you off.

You sent us letters when you could, it being your only form of communication with the outside world. You told us stories and made us laugh, you made me cry whenever I read the words: "We are positioned by an airport, I hear the planes every night. I can't wait to be flying on those wings of freedom on my way home."

I had always wanted to write you letters, and I did every so often, but my stack was far less than the others in our family. Our mother wrote to you everyday, our father whenever he could. Our sisters did the same when they found something worth sharing.

There was so much to tell you about, so much to say, yet I kept it inside, hidden and locked away. I had almost made it to the day the letters were unnecessary, I had almost reached the home run, but my feelings got the best of me when I began thinking of what to say. I told you things I could not today.

I sat in your desk chair, in your old room, and a pencil shook in my hand as paper grew wet. I had almost done this once before, I had almost slipped what I rather not but I caught myself and scribbled it out. To you, I wrote that I was fearful, that because you had left I felt myself growing uneasy. I told you about my disposition, and the nightmares I had; how they burdened even more my relationship with our father. I wrote about depression, and emotional confusion, how I didn't know what I was feeling or when it would go away.

I hate the memory, it makes me think of you and what I wrote that day, the letter that I will never again see to figure out just what it was I had written.

In my moments of vulnerability, honesty is all I have left. And honesty is what scares me when I can't remember what it was I wrote the next day.