A Letter About Me and Maybe Him or Her
by Matthew Hamity
To the prospective recipient of my sperm:
Before graciously accepting me into your womb, I feel it is my duty to inform you of certain details that were omitted from the profile posted on reproductivetissueservices.com under the header, “Featured Donor,” three weeks ago this Monday. I am that donor, Donor #5873, but you can call me Daryl. Of course, I don’t know why you would, since, even if you do select my seed, we will never meet, not unless your son or daughter gets curious eighteen years and nine months from now concerning his or her biological father, and that’s assuming he or she will have any idea at all about his or her origin, when in fact you may choose to keep that information a secret, as is your right, though I would humbly advise you reveal the truth sooner than later, after all, lies are like cancer in human relations, and more often than not, cancer of the terminal variety, a feral mitosis of distrust that will never stop, unchecked by the conscience, until we lie helpless, stripped of our appetites, coughing blood viscous with shame, our bellies bulbous with guilt-encrusted tumors, our lymph nodes swollen with regret. If I exaggerate, it is because I care. I want to you to be a good mother. You do not have to be perfect, but truthful. Even the best of mothers have their weaknesses. Fathers too. I am inadequate and incompetent and scared and trying. I am trying to be honest. I am writing you a letter and frankly, I’m surprised. When I caught Nurse Marlon masturbating, when I caught him wasting a donation on the bathroom wall, when he begged me not to report him, when he squinched his eyes and tried to make them well up, when he dabbed at the invisible tears with squares of cheap toilet paper, when he agreed to escort me to the bank in the early morning the next Sunday and show me my file, when I read your email address followed by the phrase has expressed an interest, I still never thought for a second that I’d actually do it. I never thought I’d have the guts to reach out with my heart-wrenching truths, to lay them in your proverbial lap, to expose myself in this tawdry way. But Marlon liked the idea. He said the world needed more veracious people. He said that you deserved to know exactly what kind of chromosomes you’d be receiving. Let her get to know you, he said. Share your wisdom. And your secrets. He even offered to revise the letter for me when I was done. I told him there would be no revisions, that when you tilt your heart at such an angle where the contents spill out, splattering the first page and soaking the next, nothing can be done to clean up the bloody mess. I spoke boldly because I had no intention of actually writing the letter. I wanted only to think about writing the letter. If I had actually planned on writing it, you would not be reading these words. I would have collapsed from the burden of the plan. Any action I manage to take is a reflex. Premeditated acts never come to fruition. How can anyone stand the pressure of doing something they’ve already decided they will do? Had I indeed been serious about writing you a letter, I would have written your email address on my forearm or, even better, on a scrap of paper, but instead, I wrote it on my hand with a California Cryobank ballpoint pen because I figured I’d go home and forget about it and wash my hands and then your address would be gone forever. I came home and was exhausted from the stress of snooping around the bank with Marlon. I lay in my bed and let out a great yawn. I fell asleep and when I woke, someone’s thumb was pressed against my bottom lip. I opened my eyes and saw a fat thumb with a fat hand attached to it. I felt at the creases in the palm. The palm was fleshy and warm. For a moment, I knew a strange joy, convinced that I had finally gotten lucky. But then my body jolted itself upright, reminding my brain that I’d slept alone. My arm flopped against my side. I glanced back at the pillow and the hand was gone. I screamed. I stood up and the arm accompanied me. A tingling began in my shoulder. The tingling began making its way slowly down my arm, a flame working its way through a wick in reverse. I had a double epiphany: the thumb was mine, numb with sleep, not paralysis, and also, I’d been taking the use of my limbs for granted. The flame alighted my fingertips. I spent the next hour curling and uncurling my fingers and toes, bending and unbending my arms and legs, flexing and unflexing my biceps and triceps, all in an ecstasy of appreciation for my brain and body. Then suddenly, I felt a pain, as I began to think about that miraculous second, when I’d believed the hand belonged to someone else, to no one in particular, but to anyone, as long as it wasn’t me. I looked at my hand. I read your email address. I thought of him or her. I feared for him or her. I feared he or she might wake up someday with a similar pain. I began to write this letter. Please do not be alarmed by the description of my hand as fat. I am six foot one and weigh 177 pounds, as stated in the profile. My hands and feet are pudgy but that is all. I have no fat relatives. Your son or daughter should be safe from obesity, unless you yourself are fat. I hope not. Do not gorge your child. Remember that gustatory delights are fleeting. He or she must seek a more enduring contentment. Do you trust me yet? Do you see that I have the potential child’s well being in mind? May I call him or her our child? It would give me so much pleasure. No, it is too soon. I am sorry for moving so fast. I must admit I lack patience. My brother once said I had the patience of a dying man. He claimed that he, on the other hand, owned the patience of the dead. He said it with an awful grin that saddened me because it was new. I had never seen a grin like that on his face before. I wanted him to stay the same. But he changed. He or she will change as well. It is inevitable. There are little emotional puberties happening in us all the time, the vicissitudes of milliseconds, up until we die. I never was able to catch up to my brother’s spurting developments, and eventually, he grew impatient. I miss him. Did I mention him in the profile? Perhaps I did not. No, I must be honest; I’m absolutely certain I failed to mention him because it pains me even to think of his face. He bore a striking resemblance to King Tut. Have you ever been to Egypt? I am desperate to go. I alluded to that in the Personal Essay I wrote, though I’m not sure you’ve seen it. It was not included in the online profile. I think you may have had to request it special, like the Staff Impression Report and the Facial Feature Report (if you did in fact request the Staff Impression Report, please ignore the comments of Nurse Marlon. He has confessed on two separate occasions to having a crush on me and it is likely his attraction distorted his Impression). In the essay, I wrote that I wished to see King Tut’s solid gold sarcophagus, and left it at that. I could not bear to say more. Somehow, I must bear it now. I must be brave for him or her. I last saw my brother four years ago. He had just cut his hair short, which he knew I would not like, as it obscured his likeness to Tut. This hurts, but I am still breathing. I will go on. No, I must go back before I can go forward. Some wounds are too fresh. I will attend to a scar first. The scar: acquired in high school, when my brother brought me to a bonfire on the beach. It is really a scab, not a scar. Eleven years and it still hasn’t healed. Perhaps if the clock sped forward several decades, then I would be good as new. But of course that is a lie. And besides, I detest the passage of time, the way the years pile on, these accrued fatty masses of moments, weighing me down, down, down, down, down, down…oh, but I am stalling, straying from the scab. Enough. I must go on. We had both known that I would not fit in at the bonfire, that I would make at least a few of his friends uncomfortable with my silence and sobriety, but my brother cared about me and wanted me to know it, and so there I was, sitting on a log and staring while everyone else grew mushy with booze (alcoholism runs in my family. My grandmother died of the disease. Keep him or her away from the stuff at all costs. Encourage marijuana instead. Abstinence is a gateway drug. I mean to say that we all need something and so it makes sense that we acknowledge the need and sate it with the least pernicious vice possible, otherwise the temptation will build and build and the need will grow and grow until only the deadliest of vices suffices). I had seen my brother drunk before, smelled him too, but never heard him. He would come home late, reeking, and lie upon on his bed facing the wall. I would call out to him, but he would never answer. I would shout, Hello Brother! but he would say nothing. This night however, he jabbered on and on, slurring and spitting, his voice not at all his own. In the firelight, he looked more like Tut than ever, with his blue eyes gleaming and the flames giving his full lips a golden glow, his long hair poofed out at his shoulders in a soft triangle and trailing down his chest like Tut’s headpiece. I wanted him to shut up so I could enjoy the vision that he was. I wanted everyone to shut the hell up. I wanted to listen to the crackling of the fire. Keep swigging, I finally said. Drink until you’re dead. I looked at all their slack faces and then I looked at my brother. I took a blanket and went to sleep some thirty yards from the group. I could still hear those fuckers. But it was dark and I no longer wanted to be alone. When they stopped talking, I began to shiver. The fire died out early in the morning. My brother was still drunk. He stumbled about, kicking sand against my calves. You shouldn’t have come, he said. He picked up a rock the size of my heart and stuffed it in his pocket, weighing down one leg of his shorts ridiculously. I was surprised and relieved when he let me drive home. Why do I go on and on about my brother when it pains me so? Because there is a lesson here that must be learned. Because, listen to me, because, when the child first consumes that liquid poison, and he or she will, eventually, no matter what you do, I beg you, do not judge as harshly as I did. Remember the good in him or her, and remember that drunk or sober, we all need love. Every single being needs it. Sea cucumbers and salamanders. Even parents need love. My brother knew this. He said our parents were jealous of him and his girlfriend. He called them “The Great Middle-aged masturbators,” certain they no longer had sex. This I did not dispute, only I failed to see why their celibacy rankled him so much. But now I understand: he wanted them to love each other. He wanted them to be happy. I never thought of them like that. To me, they were parents and nothing more. They were providers of love. I never thought about where that love came from, or whether they might run out someday. So, you see, you must find love yourself. What you receive from the child will not be enough. I do not mean to underrate the love of the child. I only want you to be happy so that you can share the joy with him or her, for if you fail to procure a complementary love, the child will discern that he or she is all you have. That is an unfair burden upon a child. I do not mean to preach. Certainly I am in no position to do so. I am not the hero that the online profile makes me out to be. I do not have “fair mechanical skills.” I have fat hands, and their fatness does not lend itself to handiwork around the house, nor even tasks as small as opening boxes of cereal or cartons of orange juice without ripping them to the point that they can never be closed again. Furthermore, I have cut my nostrils four times whilst trying to tweeze the nose hairs that have only become visible to me in the last few months when I gaze in the mirror. I feel sorry for short people. As a relatively tall individual, I have been spared the unpleasant interior of human noses. I believe this an advantage to being tall that most people don’t think about, though perhaps I’m wrong. Perhaps that’s all anyone thinks about. How could I know? We will never really know. But wait. It is possible that the child will have great courage. Perhaps he or she will even dare to seek the answers to such difficult questions. Perhaps he or she will go so far as to communicate with other people, and on a regular basis no less. I pray the child does not inherit my cowardice. Let the double-helix that contains my irrepressible timidity be absent from the sample received. If only I could’ve plunged my tweezers deep into plastic cup, picking out the nastier bits of genetic material like so many nose hairs. Of course I would still lack the requisite steady hands, the fingers careful and true. I’d probably fuck it up worse, removing one of the precious few positive characteristics, say my sensitivity to the elderly and their plight (would you believe that in spite of such sensitivity, neither of my grandmothers liked me, these self-same grandmothers whom the profile erroneously denominated my “loving mentors”? I was their least favorite, though I called them more than the rest of their grandchildren combined. Perhaps I called too often. One of my grandmothers died while on the phone with me). I fear I am going too far. I mean only to elucidate certain ambiguities of the profile, certain incomplete and/or misleading declarations. I do not wish to present myself as pitiful to the point of repugnance nor insane to the point of impotence, for that is hardly the case. I happen to be much admired for my sperm count. The staff often raved about my motility and morphology. Marlon once told me I was the most virile man alive. Of course I don’t feel that way, though there are times when I think this could be the inspiration for a new self, times when I think, “I have an opportunity here to perform the greatest invention known to mankind: the invention of the self,” prompting my hopes to rocket naively skyward. These sanguine moments are short-lived--painful reckonings with reality inevitably ensue. Fecund or not, the child must familiarize him or herself with even their most exasperating limitations, for limitations of the self are especially agonizing when one forgets their existence. Perhaps I would feel differently if I were living long ago, when fertility was prized above all else, when Tut walked along the riverside singing lullabies to no one, dreaming of his firstborn, secretly hoping for a girl because he wanted a friend, not another rival. Perhaps then my newly discovered virility would be enough. But of course it is not. I am still me. I am a neglected God. I am a hideous mutation. I am a suffering saint. I am a solipsistic sinner. My self-perceptions tend to oscillate. I have trouble finding the happy medium. In my entire life, I cannot remember encountering a happy medium. Frankly, I am not even certain that such a thing exists. A happy medium! Ha! The in-between is not a happy place at all. It is too crowded. Men of extremes, men like myself, we claim to crave the warmth, the closeness, that one experiences amongst the masses. We pretend to suffer from claustrophilia when we know good and well that we’d suffocate. Oh there is no doubt that an asphyxiation of some kind or another would soon take place, whether it be at the hands of the masses or our own. But whatever venom they may have for me I heartily deserve, for I hate the common men. I hate them for their homogeneity, and it seems only appropriate that the feeling be mutual. I am not a good man. I am a petty man. I am a bitter man. Me, a father? At best, a naïve notion, and at worst, well...there I go again, scaring you with proclamations of my hopelessness. This is but bravado, I swear. My parents always said I was too hard on myself. I don’t think that’s true exactly, but I can see why they might say something to that effect, for I have a crippling fear of external criticism, and the easiest way to combat it is to heap generous amounts of denigration on myself, beating them to the punch. Even the harsh words of a child may cut at my skin. Though it said in the profile, under “Employment”, that I became a referee for children’s soccer because I get along well with the youths, that is only true comparatively speaking—I get along with them better than I do adults, but not well. Far from it. They scare me. The games for them are life and death. If the call I make is oxygen for one team, it is poison, or at least a lack of oxygen, for the other. I have great power but I would give it all up for love. Once a child called me the Devil. Another said I fuck ducks. I fear their capacity for hatred, the kind of pure, righteous hatred that even the most obnoxious of their parents lost long ago. I contend that, deep down, Hitler knew his lust for genocide was wrong; the Nazi Youth, they were the truly dangerous ones. Had one such child supplanted the Fuhrer, the solution would’ve indeed been final, and then you would not have the access to my sperm that you do (they didn’t tell you I was a quarter Jewish, did they? They fear that you’re a bigot. Are you?). It is important that you prepare yourself for the child’s fascism, for his or her selfishness and concomitant ideological certainty. He or she will stand by his or her desires, unwavering, for a child burns off guilt like it does calories—our metabolisms slow as we age in both regards. Do not overestimate your ability to shape the child. It is far more likely that the child will shape you. Take me, for example. As the children move on the soccer field, I too am moved. I want each of them to like me. I want this very badly, and so, from my partiality to every single child comes the appearance of impartiality. I am neither a pedophile nor a pervert (by saying so, you will think that I am, but you are dead wrong. In fact, I would say I’m more attracted to those significantly older than myself, decades older even. The older you are, the closer to death, the closer to death, the wiser. This does not mean I had some latent attraction to my grandmothers. Goddamnit. I swear it does not. Perhaps it is you that’s perverted) but I do like watching the children move. They move in extremes (the rabid spiking of my self-evaluations could be likened to the movement of a child), sprinting at full force, chasing the bouncing prey, desirous of its shiny skin, as if it is only this moment that matters, the past long dead and the future an unborn sibling whose existence their parents have yet to broach, but if not like this, then always walking, hands on hips and head down, staring at the sodden grass, the shouts of other children a white noise, keenly aware that all has been decided, their tiny ankles shackled to distant fates. The unborn sibling is certainly a startling intrusion on the life of the child already born. I happen to know that my birth was indeed a surprise to my brother, that my parents sprung my existence upon him like a sudden death. This is evidenced in all the photographs: it is not until I turned four years old that the expression of ingenuous shock disappeared from my brother’s face, replaced by one of condescending acceptance, and then later, ardent protection, and still later, cautious amusement, then wrinkled concern, followed by melancholic regret, and finally, in the most recent photo, grinding rage. I keep each of these photographs in a box that also houses the stationery upon which I write my brother letters though I’ve no idea where to send them (Nurse Marlon is of no help in this matter). On the back of each photo, I have written the appropriate adjective-noun combination that best describes my brother’s countenance. If it seems odd to you that I have done so, then you have never grieved. When it comes to my brother, I will not tolerate being judged, not even by you. As I started to say before, I last saw him four years ago. Four years. I’m amazed I’m still alive. If not for my fear of death, I might have…well I am digressing yet again. Oh, my sweet brother. He had just cut his hair short. Why’d you do it, Tut? I asked, calling him by that playful name to hide my hurt. But he saw right through me. You need to get over this Tut thing, he said. It’s time you grew the fuck up. I had not expected such a response. It may seem fairly harmless to you, but I am a sensitive type, and my brother had always done me the favor of walking on eggshells in my presence, with the exception of the previously recounted night at the beach, but of course he had been drunk on that occasion and I had been unbearably self-righteous. Why did you say that? I asked. I cannot be around you anymore, he said. What? I asked. What? I love you, he said. You’re still my brother. But I’m going away. I’m can’t be your caretaker the rest of my life. I squeezed his hand, digging my thumb into his palm. I need more time, I said. Gimme a decade and I’ll be alright. I’ll figure things out. Am I a parasite? Is that what you’re saying? Don’t I make your life any better? There’s got to be some symbiosis to speak of. I can improve. I can go out and meet girls with you. I can get a job. I can make things right with Mom and Dad. All I’m asking for is a decade. Goodbye Daryl, he said. That is a condensed version of our last interaction. I would not have made it to the end if I had told you everything. The essentials are there. My brother left. What more can be said about him and I? That when he used to close his eyes, I often felt a pang, as if I already knew that someday, he would leave me behind? That each night, before I went to sleep, I left a message on his answering machine telling him I hoped he’d soon find happiness? That I begged him to record the greeting on my machine because I loved the sound of his voice and hated my own? That I lived for his visits and nothing else? That I’ve spent most of my life waiting for him? Though I’ve lost, I’ve loved, and that is most important. At least people say it is. I’d like to believe in the things people say. It would be nice to believe in God, wouldn’t it? to ask yourself, Who created the world? and be able to respond, Why God of course, you silly! You could pose yourself any question. There would be no restrictions. Who will care for him or her? Why God of course, you silly! And who will love the unlovable? Why God of course, you silly! And who fucked up my life? Why God of course, you silly! But perhaps it is also prudent to have faith in yourself, to take matters in your own hands, say by enriching your life and the child’s with another being, a sister or a brother for a son or a daughter. Can you imagine a family too large for just one house, a family of more hims and hers than can be easily counted, children lining up in the hallway and down the stairs and into the kitchen and around the breakfast table and out the back door for first dibs on the bathroom? So I’m getting ahead of myself. So what? Can I afford to remain grounded? I don’t think so. Not anymore, not without my brother. That perhaps, I may never have been particularly grounded, even with him in my life, is irrelevant. Now is what matters. Now I feel I like an only child. An orphan, almost. When my brother left, I sought the embrace of my parents and found nothing but dead eyes and excuses. I had taken my brother’s side in an argument years earlier and I have yet to be forgiven. I do not regret it, for my brother was right on all accounts, though he could have been more gentle, that much I admit. He should not have screamed, “You’ve obliterated both your sons.” He should not have called their marriage “a last resort.” He should not have blamed his depression on the contagiousness of theirs. I should not have joined in by giving a mock “State of the Union” in which I equated that of our parents’ with an “excruciating bowel movement that refuses to vacate the intestine.” I had been trying to impress my brother and wounded our parents in the process. We both loved Mom and Dad, but our cruel ranting suggested otherwise. Even as I’d ranted, I’d hoped they would see through it. But they were too fragile to dismiss our words, and so they ranted back, claiming we, my brother and I, were to blame for our miserable lives. If only one of us could have said what we actually felt, and not what we felt like saying. My advice: if the child rails at you, let him or her go right ahead. Lend him or her your ears. Withhold your tongue. And when the rant is over, say, I love you. My parents divorced soon after that terrible quarrel. My brother moved out and I followed suit. Several years later, after my brother bid me farewell, I decided I needed my parents again. I decided I wanted to live with them. I went to my father first. He said, Your mother has more room in her house. I went to my mother next. She said, Your father is a better cook and a vegetarian. I went to my father. We’re both vegetarians, I said. He said, I’m a vegan now. I went to my mother. She said, What the hell’s the difference? I went to my brother’s apartment. He had already moved out. The landlord would not tell me where he had gone. I went to the pet store. I came close to buying a pet, but at the last minute, changed my mind (to buy a pet is a prostitution of sorts. I will not pay for love. Yes, I could adopt a pet, but what kind of relationship would be possible even then. The pet would have little choice in the matter. I crave something consensual). I went to the sperm bank, seeking wages and hope. I am glad that I did. I am glad I am writing this letter. I am surprised I have made it this far, that I’ve divulged this much. Something spurs me onward. I must have a new strength in me. Perhaps it is because of Marlon. He is a kind-hearted man. If you do visit the bank, ask for Marlon. Feel free to drop my name. Marlon is my only friend. He listens when I speak about my brother. He tells me about the power of prayer. He says that, like me, he does not believe in God, that God and prayer have little to do with each other. Prayer is about feeling alive. Prayer is about desire. That is where the true pleasure lies, he says. Not in the actualization and not in the materialization and not in the realization and not in the ejaculation, but in the desire. Those other things are but disappointments. He might be right. I should not have blackmailed him. Masturbation is not a crime. He deserves an apology. I may wake up next to Marlon someday. I think that would be fine. I will write him next. Still, I don’t believe it is Marlon alone that makes me stronger. It may also be the potential existence of our child. Yes, I said it. Our child. Let me say it once more. Our child. Again. Our child. Did you know that on the morning of that day of days, I woke up with the most iron-firm erection I’ve ever had? I tell you this not to repulse you, but as evidence that I was predestined to make that particular donation. It was in the stars. I remember waking up and touching my boxers, fearing a nocturnal emission. I remember the relief of the dry fabric against my fingertips, dry like my mouth when I imagine how my life will be when I’m old and on the cusp of death. Why must I be so morbid? you ask. It is a part of who I am. It is a sign of my intellect, the very intellect that you covet for him or her. Know that if the child is bright, he or she will also ponder mortality. Know that if the child is a genius, he or she will do no such thing. He or she will be a hedonist. The geniuses of mankind have all been fornicators, for brilliant thoughts are unbearably painful, and the orgasm is the only way to eliminate them. The orgasm and the sneeze. Me, I am not smart enough to be a fornicator. My brother was a fornicator. And a boozer. Of course booze kills thought as well. And death does too. The orgasm and the sneeze and booze and death will surely do the trick. There I go again, Ole’ Blackheart, always shedding darkness on light. I am pessimistic (but you probably know that already, since it said so in the profile under “Adjectives”, though “pessimistic” was furtively sandwiched between “spontaneous” and “loyal”). Even on that day of days, despite the morning’s good omen (the most indurate of erections), I must admit I had second thoughts. I stood looking at the foliage that surrounded the entrance of the bank. I watched a bee pollinating a sunflower. I felt mocked as the bee wiggled his stinger at me, flaunting his ability to procreate with a living being. Me, I procreated by myself. I would sit alone in a room, my testicles pressed against my thigh, clinging to each other, like anxious armless brothers. I would gawk at the bodies of naked, desperate women. Glory to the bee and shame on me. I decided it was not fair. I gripped the sunflower by the stem and the bee buzzed off like the coward that it was, retreating from the assassin with the fat, clumsy hands. I picked at the red-hot center of the flower until only a pale pink film remained, reducing the petals to pathetic rays of light with no heat behind them, rays that feebly caressed even the most vulnerable among us: the albinos and the redheads and the babies. Even the albino babies. I hated the flower and I hated the bee but of course, I was the true target. I had lost my brother and had no one to blame but myself. I have no one to blame but myself. An hour later, alone in the donation room, after a few tugging minutes, I closed my eyes and I saw children everywhere. The children looked nothing like me. It was not until they began to speak that I noticed the connection, their voices reminiscent of the one on my answering machine, higher sure, but with the same thin, nasal quality, voices that just barely escaped their bodies, the vibrations nearly choked out on the way up. They were me and they were not me, each with their own little selfhood, their own fresh soul. The voice was the only umbilical cord. But it can be cut. It must be cut. And then what’s left? What will be left of me? Nothing, I pray. Or perhaps just a little something. Just a little. Would that be so bad? Yes, I guess it probably would.
Sincerely,
Donor #5873 (Daryl)
Postscript:
There, I’ve revealed a great deal about myself, far more than I’d intended, and now you’ve got all the power. But so what? Honestly, I’m glad to be rid of it. I’ve no use for power. You might as well do your worst. Call the bank and demand I be removed from the list of donors. Blab my secrets to all you know. Laugh at me. Loathe me. Go to Egypt and spit on King Tut for all I care. Spit until your mouth is dead-dry. I know degradation well. I know suffering. These are not new things for me. Go ahead and spurn the humble donor, he who has masturbated into a cup, he who has written the Time of Ejaculation on a piece of masking tape, he who must try to move forward in his life, he who must no longer think of him or her or his own dear brother, he who must find some other light.
Post-postscript:
I do not mean to scare you away. I want you to have my sperm; I would not have donated it if I didn’t. After all, you are my last hope for a validated existence, you and your unborn, unconceived child. Only, I want you to have all the facts straight, the facts as I see them. I need you to know everything. Because I could never forgive myself if years from now, when little Mitchy (let’s assume he’s a boy, just for the sake of this hypothetical. Also, my brother’s name was Mitch. Was. Maybe is. Maybe not. He could be somebody else now, or dead. What a fucked up world this is. I’m sorry. I know you don’t want to hear that right now. Look, the earth certainly has its moments. There’s potential happiness out there somewhere, and Mitch’ll find it. Of course he will.) is not so little anymore, and he comes to you and he says, “Ma, I’ve gotta tell you something,” and you say, “What is it dear?” with real compassion in your voice, maybe even touching his cheek, because you two are close, as close as a parent and child of the opposite sex can be without any sexual tension, and Mitch says, “I’m lonely,” and you’re taken aback--this is not what you were expecting, maybe a failed exam, or a speeding ticket, but not this, for Mitch has lots of friends, is always out late on the weekends going to parties and once he came home with a girl and she was okay looking and he seemed to really like her, so you’re taken aback, and he starts to cry, really heaving, like he’s just found out something terrible, like every dog he’ll ever have is dead, and you start to cry too, squeezing him and feeling him tremor and trying to come up with some sort of explanation for why your son’s coming apart in your hands, for why his skin’s turning cool and damp, and he’s in pain, howling now, so that you begin to doubt yourself, wondering whether you could have loved him any better, taken him hang-gliding or given him a different name or celebrated his half-birthday once or twice, thinking that maybe, you are not a good mother.
Please, remember this letter. I want you to blame me.