30 days of letters: Day 3 - Your parents
Dad,
It’s been a lotta years, and we done this dance before, but lately it’s been on my mind again for whatever reason. You, me, how I grew up…
I know there’s days you still don’t believe that I forgive you.
Way I see it, my life could’ve gone two ways. First way was the path I never took. Grow up nursing the bottle to make the visions and the voices stop, living in bars and bordellos hoping to make the pain end one night at a time. Might’ve joined the military, might’ve just been a damn outlaw. Hell, maybe I might’ve lived on the reservation if I found a tribe of them redskins wouldn’t run at the sight of me for being cursed with the Sight. Could’ve been a shaman if I could’ve gotten past my own bullshit. One way or another, I’d have probably died by forty, and that’s if I was lucky…but I would’ve had my daddy, least for a little while.
Then there’s the other way. My daddy, he got killed when he poked at a coffin he had no business disturbing. A good man paid a horrible price ‘cause he got angry at being betrayed by a woman he loved. I got the training I needed with a family that loved me, and you got to untangle the mess you were when you first woke up. You made a hard choice, sending me away, and all while that madness was still swirling around in your head. You saved a child’s life, and all while you were still trying to figure out your own.
Took me some time when I came back here, but I learned that lesson within a few years. I got why you did what you did, and I got the fact that I was lucky. Since then, I’ve learned what you went through, I’ve been stung a time or two by dark magic of my own.
You are every bit a father to me. Respect, loyalty, love…you earned ‘em all and then some. Whatever sins you committed, you already paid for, and you never did less than right by me. Maybe my daddy had to die so you could come along and make something halfway decent of me.
I don’t just forgive you, Dad. I’m grateful…and I love you, always.
-Jed
It’s been a lotta years, and we done this dance before, but lately it’s been on my mind again for whatever reason. You, me, how I grew up…
I know there’s days you still don’t believe that I forgive you.
Way I see it, my life could’ve gone two ways. First way was the path I never took. Grow up nursing the bottle to make the visions and the voices stop, living in bars and bordellos hoping to make the pain end one night at a time. Might’ve joined the military, might’ve just been a damn outlaw. Hell, maybe I might’ve lived on the reservation if I found a tribe of them redskins wouldn’t run at the sight of me for being cursed with the Sight. Could’ve been a shaman if I could’ve gotten past my own bullshit. One way or another, I’d have probably died by forty, and that’s if I was lucky…but I would’ve had my daddy, least for a little while.
Then there’s the other way. My daddy, he got killed when he poked at a coffin he had no business disturbing. A good man paid a horrible price ‘cause he got angry at being betrayed by a woman he loved. I got the training I needed with a family that loved me, and you got to untangle the mess you were when you first woke up. You made a hard choice, sending me away, and all while that madness was still swirling around in your head. You saved a child’s life, and all while you were still trying to figure out your own.
Took me some time when I came back here, but I learned that lesson within a few years. I got why you did what you did, and I got the fact that I was lucky. Since then, I’ve learned what you went through, I’ve been stung a time or two by dark magic of my own.
You are every bit a father to me. Respect, loyalty, love…you earned ‘em all and then some. Whatever sins you committed, you already paid for, and you never did less than right by me. Maybe my daddy had to die so you could come along and make something halfway decent of me.
I don’t just forgive you, Dad. I’m grateful…and I love you, always.
-Jed