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I wrote this unsent letter to my son a few years ago and updated it today. I spent the Lent after my father died in January of 2021, writing letters to my father and son on alternating days, letters never sent, never read.
Some of them, the less frothy, overwrought ones, might make it into the memoir.
I don’t know where my son is these days. It’s annoying, outrageous, unbearable, and also simply the way things are.
“Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”
Is that true? I supposed it’s true, but sometimes it doesn’t feel true.
We’ve gone through cycles like this before, but still…I found this prompt from Robin Rauzi (my wonderful LA Times editor on many op-eds and former neighbor too). She has a great writing program called “Forty Days and Forty Writes.” I’ve done this program six or seven times, and it gave me the backbone of my memoir in progress.
Beautiful Cousin Mo has been gone six months now, and I refer to her in the letter below. We were a year into COVID at the time of this letter, Kiffen was back teaching in person, and I was living in Los Angeles and teaching UAB students online.
Dear Son,
The wind blows where it chooses.
That is the writing prompt for today. I could substitute many words for “wind.”
Addiction blows where it chooses.
Obsession blows where it chooses.
You grew addicted, and I grew obsessed.
But what if, just for today, I did not imagine you cold in your tent waking on the chilled hard cement?
Or what if I didn’t imagine you suffering in the heatwave?
What if, just for today, I did not picture you unhoused and whiling away the days, all promises, hopes, and dreams dashed?
In this moment of quiet in the early dawn, your father has brought me a steaming mug of coffee with foamed whipped almond milk resembling the head of a root beer float on a summer’s day. We have a new steamer from Cousin Mo, which makes for fancy coffee.
In this moment of quiet in the early dawn, I get to write you a letter and describe things to you without any hope or expectation, and it gives me solace to write to you, dear son.
How many times can I tell you how much you are loved and missed?
At this moment, cooper hawks fly over the warming hills of Echo Park where palm fronds, cypress, and oleander dot the landscape, and I get to watch it all from my treetop bedroom. I wish I never had to leave this tiny house built in 1910. When you played old songs on the piano, it was like stepping back in time, especially if I were outside beneath the eucalyptus tree, listening to the notes wafting out of open windows. And by the way, are you listening to the owls at night from wherever you are? I’ve never heard so many owls on my nightly walks through Elysian Park.
(We gave the old piano to our former neighbor, Malina, who lives downstairs in the studio apartment, and now her notes serenade the 1910 home. Kiffen and Brian helped Malina carry the piano down the steps exactly a year ago.)
So, what if, just for today, instead of waiting (wallowing) in fear and dread and the steady thrum of missing you, I imagined your beautiful sunlit life full of friends and strangers connecting in all kinds of precious moments I will never see, but that’s okay.
I imagine you playing piano with Herbie at 5th and Los Angeles Street at the King Edward Hotel.
I imagine you describing Jean Harlow's stories and her journey from Kansas City or taking me on a tour of Aimee Semple McPherson’s house by Echo Park Lake.
I imagine the long, looping winding walks we took through the hills of Silver Lake, Echo Park, and Vermont Canyon in Griffith Park where you used to run cross country. Sometimes, we rode scooters, but mostly we walked up and down the secret steps, perhaps on our way to Skylight Books, movies at the Vista, and thrift shopping on Vermont or Goodwill. You always did find the best clothes for us.
Or what if, just for today, I remember the time you climbed to the top of the tree to wave and laugh (there were so many treetops) or the time you scoured up “Monkey Space,” a place you named located in your grandparents’ San Diego backyard, perfect for exploring or the time you and your sister held a blue lemonade stand there with chocolate chip cookies — five cents a glass — ten cents a cookie. Not many cars passed by on that quiet street, but you had a few takers.
What if, just for today, I let go of the loss that presses like a stone on my heart, and I turn toward the sun and trees and the jasmine now blooming?
I must tell you, I have a new 90-year-old friend, Ann, who adores Olive. She loves her big eyes, and Ann melts on Zoom when I show her Olive.
“That little doggie, oh, that little doggie.”
So I made Ann a book of Olive pictures, and Ann said, “Olive’s eyes are the eyes of God,” and Cousin Mo laughed and said, “That’s a pretty big responsibility, Olive.”
Your grandmother says Olive’s eyes are more the eyes of Loretta Young, Bette Davis, or Marty Feldman, certainly not God.
Anyway, the chimes are ringing outside, and your father has left to face the beast of LAUSD for another day. He has to get weekly COVID tests now, but so far all are negative.
We’ve each had our first vaccines.
You came home a year ago to live because of the pandemic and stayed six weeks — gardening, painting, and playing music, obsessing over the benefits of Turmeric and Peanut Oil too.
I was in Alabama, but you and your father were together, and it seemed like a good thing, a kind of small miracle. But we could not change your mind when you decided to leave, and that’s okay too.
“The wind blows where it chooses.”
What if it’s all okay?
What if everything is simply okay?
I love you dearly, and I hope your day is easy and sweet and full of good things, my radiant son.
Love,
Mama
Your graceful writing makes it all seem less jagged and ripping. You have a beautiful soul.
beautiful. When the Fabulists were meeting online due to the lockdown I remember Kiffen and F. joining us one time. I agree that Olive has Bette Davis eyes (I had that same photo of her sitting on my piano for years.) Love blows where it chooses and I hope you feel that breeze landing on you.