To Rectify with the Departed

Dearest Grandmother, 

Ms. Mary Francis Roberts,

I am writing this letter because I am trying to stay sober, to understand, acknowledge and take responsibility for my harmful behaviors so I do not ever repeat them again. I am finally trying to do the right thing, I am trying really hard grandma. I love you and I know for certain that you loved me. 

I have written and vocalized it before, but you truly are the only one that every made me feel genuinely loved. I have few memories of my childhood, yet every one I have of you, is warm and pleasant, yet my remembrance is bittersweet. 

That is exactly why I am writing this letter. I want to apologize to you. I do not know that you feel angry or hurt, or disappointed now, but I know that I have regrets. 

The end of your life I was fifteen years old and spiraling out of control. Seeing this must have been a bit like watching your most precious cargo spin from the sky in a downward and doomed billow of smoke and having no power to stop it, stuck as a pained spectator... I wish I had spent that time getting to know you better instead. So many questions, so little time.

I apologize for being so selfish. I spent your dying days off on my own nihilistic, self-destructive storm. I wish I could take that time back. I suppose many people could and quite often do, reflect on their lives and think “If only I did this rather than that” or “If only I had simply known…”  The truth is we cannot know until we know, however long, by whatever means. Why all the suffering in between? How much torment and pain must we endure and inflict before stumbling upon this precious bit of wisdom. I suspect that we will never truly know the answer to that, not while we're stuck in these bodies. I only pray I cease to harm others and myself in the process of what is left of my fleeting life. All things are fleeting, all lives are fleeting, like catching a snowflake only to watch it dissolve.

I am only thirty but my health is quite poor for my age. I have an infectious disease called Hepatitis C with a rare genome. I currently take two very strong medications that are attempting to rid my body of this virus. I was also diagnosed with stage four cirrhosis and nearly died in August 2014. I am taking medicines to do what a normal liver does. I would die if I didnt. the doctors made that perfectly clear. You may already know all of this, Perhaps your spirit was in the room with me when I was in purgatory, when it happened.  Perhaps you tried to help me. 

I survived, but far from unscathed. 

In case you do not know already, I’d like to tell you what happened, what I did, what I failed to do and what became of me.

Shortly after you died, your daughter, my mother, gave her parental rights away and I was in  state custody. I lived in and out of what they call now group homes, an orphanage.Then a little less then a year after I was impregnated by a man ten years my senior, the first when I was just sixteen. It was a boy.  I gave birth to two of his children. You have several great Grandchildren now, Cousin Lisa had a baby as well, thankfully her marriage was out of love and maturity and the child will have the blessing of growing up in that environment.

 Mitchell and Devin are my children’s names. The father made a cruel and spiteful decision when he absconded with them from FL to New York. My beautiful son was not quite three years old and my daughter was still nursing at my breast. It was beyond traumatizing and I did not handle it well. I worry for Mitchell now as he is now about to enter his teen years, in the same way I can only assume you worried for me, A trouble in his eyes, a heart broken too young, a boy who seems very confused and boiling just beneath his surface with anger. I wish I knew what to do to help him, I wish I could ask you. I only know that I can stay sober. I simply must at the very least do this or else nothing will be accomplished. I can do my best to take care of my health and my serenity so I can be emotionally available to them.

 I wish that I could ask you why I was always so sad, so angry, so lost, so frightened? What happened to me grandma; to have made what was once whole shatter and peirce? 

Please forgive me for causing you worry and perhaps emotional pain while you where still within your human body. Help me to do this, watch over me please. Sometimes I think you have been. If that is the case I hope there is no suffering where you are, so you only saw with a loving detachment me kill myself and slaughter what was left of my spirit for all these years. 

If you are not an angel yourself, please send one to me so I can do this. I need strength; I need to know what you loved about me. I need to know how to love. I apologize for not being the granddaughter you deserved, perhaps I will make it up to you now, if I survive this.

I always loved you even if I did not know how to show you.

I still love and need you, perhaps more now than ever before. 

I like to imagine that you able to see somehow that I am not in distress anymore and that you rest easy. For you to finally see me smile with my whole heart. To one day, see me feel joy, at peace with myself and to witness me love another as I still have yet to do. If you can somehow sense me trying to communicate this too you, then perhaps you can assist me with this endeavor.

For I believe you would agree that it is right and it is good. 

Forgive me for all my youthful selfishness. 

Your blonde haired and blue-eyed granddaughter;

who still walks this lonely planet.

 Who bears the name of you and your sister.

With love, scars and truth, 

from this realm to yours,

Mary Catherine

 Cowardice Queen