A covering

“I’ll have to sit with you while you read it,”

He tore open the letter. I could see by his face his mind was telling himself not to rush. You can’t rush letters like this.

I knew his dad wouldn’t be out for fourteen more years, on good behavior no less. But letters from jail, no matter what darkness they are tinged with, are always good omens. They are positive reminders that parents think about their children, even in locked up places far away; that a blood connection cannot forget and does not easily exhaust. Bad parents writing letters from jail. I watched a fifteen year old young man read a letter from his father whom he hasn’t heard from in years, a letter stamped by a penitentiary, a scar on the memory of one’s only link to family legacy. and the only emotion I could muster was guilt for my own hopeful fifteen year old circumstances: I was getting my drivers permit, going to movies, taking beach trips with my family. My birthday could not be forgotten, I was able to choose who I was and where I was going– all identities wrapped up in the clothes on my back, the brand of book bag I carried, the colleges I thought I might attend.

These developing lives, the young men in this home, face the odds. Often weak in my empathy, I marvel at their bravery to face each day, to wake up in the morning. Generations of poor choices, a forefather’s bad seed, rest heavy on their hearts. What does it feel like to have a bad daddy? Boys continue to brag about their fathers at dinner. Who has the strongest father, who has the fastest father. But these fathers are locked up, or on the streets chained to chemicals they can’t kick. A boy wants to see the good in his father because a boy was made to idolize the one man who represents his eternal hero, cosmically assigned caretaker. and I can see it at birthday time, because all we really want on our birthday is mom and dad, sister and brother. We want to be celebrated within a connection deeper than circumstance, deeper than choice even. We want to know that we were loved just for coming into this world, an absolute affirmation of ourselves.

So, for these heavy hearts, I give my time, my labor, my attetion and my rich, chocolatey birthday cakes, hoping the imitation will satiate and the feeling of family might carry over.

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