To My Loved One in Heaven,

I know it has been a very long time since I last saw your face, eighteen years to be exact next month. I was five the last time I saw you and now here I am, about to graduate college at the end of this upcoming semester. Time sure does fly!

What I haven’t told you, and mostly because we would be here for a million hours if I even tried, is what you have missed in that time. Weddings, babies being born, families being started, the list goes on. You just have missed so much by not being here. Now I know with these important events that there is always an empty chair in your honor. You are with us always, just not in the way we would all like you to be here. With your anniversary coming up in a few short weeks, I have been doing a lot of thinking about things and life. I have gained an understanding of your illness and struggles as I have gotten older throughout the years. I have struggled with my own inner demons and I can sympathize with how yours made you feel but what you did was not the only way out. It was just something that worked for you. The older I get, the more I understand that this was your decision and despite my feelings or anyone else’s, we must respect it. No matter how many years pass that you are not here, we indeed must respect your absence as your decision.

You also should respect some things of ours too in return. Mostly, being able to live our lives to the fullest and not dwell on the past. I know you want us all to be happy. For the most part, we all are. I know for a fact I am. I can’t necessarily speak for other people but for the first time in my life, I am truly, genuinely, deeply happy. I was in a bad spot for a few years as I tried to overcome some personal struggles like I touched on before. I made some bad decisions that I am not proud of, but it has been a learning curve of life.

See, I thought I had a purpose in life outlined for me because of your decision to end your life. I thought I was meant to be a nurse and help people live their lives and get better when they feel sick. I realized my big heart could not handle the stress and the anxiety that nursing school put me through so after two institutions I withdrew. This decision I thought would be the worst decision of my life and I would regret it forever. To be honest Dad, I thought you would hate me and be ashamed of it too. But something incredible happened once I made that decision.

First being, I learned to stop being something that I am not. I was so exhausted all the time trying to fight myself to be something I wasn’t. I learned to love myself for who I am and my imperfect flaws. I stopped listening to what people were trying to tell me to do and started listening to my heart and what direction it was throwing me. I eventually found my way and that is important. When I stopped trying to be something I am not is when I learned to live. I don’t mean petty living about life either. I mean living with meaning. I want every decision I make to have meaning to support what I do.

Eventually I found being happy. Someone even commented a few days ago on how I have truly looked happy the past few months. I didn’t realize the impact of that until I started to think about it and I realized that I was indeed happy. There was a time in my life where I was constantly stressing about the next step and would get so worked up and anxious over what to do if it didn’t work out. Now, I don’t stress about the next step because everything has a funny way of working itself out. I will end up where I am meant to be in time.

The funny thing—well not actually funny but I don’t know the right word here—is that I have tried to imagine what my life would be like if you were here and I realize that everything I have now would cease to exist and it made me sad. Your absence has made me appreciate things a lot more and not to take everything for granted so much. So, I cannot help but think 18 years later that we all ended up where we were meant to be.

I hope you’ve found peace by now and that you can find joy in watching our lives unfold in front of your eyes wherever you are. You were not your illness. Your illness just ultimately won in the end.

I forgive you.

I miss you.

I promise to never forget you.

Above all, I will always love you.

Godspeed Dad.

Love,

Brittnae