Shadows of the Past

I refuse to address this letter to anyone in particular. I have no plans to ever show it to anyone, and there is no longer a chance of me giving it to the man that it’s written for.

J is dead. Just writing the word pains me, breaks something inside of me that was already cracked, already bruised, and needed only a small shove in the direction of total annihilation. I’ve moved beyond devastated to that horrible gray area of the destroyed person that I had become .

Kelly called me on Wednesday to tell me the news that J had been involved in an accident. That he hadn’t survived. God, just writing that down makes my heart clench, makes my breath come faster and the blood slide away from my face.

Since that time, I’ve watched my husband, the man I’ve been married to for almost ten years, watch me withdraw into a place inside of myself that I have neither the desire nor ability to touch. My daughter, my sweet, innocent Victoria, is upset and confused that her mother no longer leaves her room. She hears me crying, I know, and it scares her. But not even my intense love for her has been able to pull me out of this depression that’s so much deeper, so much darker, than anything I’d ever anticipated.

I had to stop reading. My eyes were already blurring with unshed tears, and I felt as confused as my mother must have felt while writing the letter. I tried to think back. My eyes glanced up to the date—May of ’14. It would have been about two months before my ninth birthday.

Did I remember anything about that time? I scrunched my eyes tight, felt the frown lines on my forehead. Nine, nine…and then I did remember. A period of time that I now knew must have been about a week, when my mother was "ill".

"No, honey, it’s not the flu. She just needs some rest. We need to leave her alone for awhile and let her get better, okay?" He’d looked so sad. I could remember that now, even though I don’t think I really noticed, or even paid attention to it, so long ago.

So we’d left her alone. Dad had taken me to a movie—. We’d rented DVD's to watch, and he’d read me stories. We’d went out to have pizza, and stopped to get ice cream cones that we ate at the park.

How must he have been feeling during that time, trying to keep his only child occupied while his wife’s heart broke over another man? Because it had to be a man, had to be someone that my mother had once loved. Still loved, if the letter was to be believed, when she’d been married to my father.

How had he coped? How did this loving, wonderful man deal with the fact that my mother was having a breakdown over the death of someone who wasn’t her husband?

And who was J? What did he have to do with my mother? Why did she love him, and why did the fact that he was dead tear her apart? I wouldn’t know unless I kept reading, but just the thought of finding out made my heart beat faster and my palms sweat.

As I wiped my hands on the thighs of my jeans, I remembered something, a cliché of sorts, that I’d picked up years ago. Some things are better left unknown. Like that oldie but goodie, be careful what you wish for. Did I even want to know who J was? How his death had ripped something from my mother that I’d never get back? She was never the same outgoing, carefree woman after that. Did I really want to know who the man was who held so much control over my mothers life was? But no matter what I felt there was another part of me that wanted to know about this other part of my mother life, the part that no matter what or whom came into her life she held back. What made her run away and never look back until...until the week before my ninth birthday.

I promised Victoria that I would take her shopping for her party. But right now I can't seem to be able to get the strength to get out of bed, let alone shopping with an eight year old. I love my daughter, I do no one will ever need to doubt that. She's my life, over the past few years I tried to stay away. I didn't want to intrude on J's life. And I knew that being in the same city with Victoria would do that, she would be a constant reminder to me of what could have been. Kevin has been, well i've been content. I can't really say i've been happy but, it's what I chose and it's what I have to live with.

But now all I feel is empty and I dont understand it. We said goodbye years ago. We both moved on with our lives. But I guess knowing that he was still only a phone call or email away (both of which Kevin never knew about) made it not seem so......made me not feel so alone.

But now I feel like I did right after the breakup in 2002. I feel empty, drained, alone I can't talk about this with anyone. THey would never understand the way I'm feeling. Kevin would probably walk out, Jamie Lynn would think I was being overly dramatic, Bryan would just tell me to move on already (I have I really have.) And mama would just smile and say that you never really forget your first love, but she would also tell me to move on.

So here I sit, writing and putting my thoughts down on paper. This is the one and only place that I can say this. I love you Justin Randall, and damn you for leaving me alone again.

As I sat down reading the only thing I could do was weap for my mother. For the pain that she was in, the burden she beared all of these years. I'll never forget a few years later my mom had another child, well adopted. A little boy, even though he wasn't her natural child Randy was the light of her life but even he didn't bring back the mom of old, now it all makes sense. Im a way Randy was a part of him. She always said that an angel gave him to her. And then a year later she and daddy divorced. Now I know why, he couldn't live with a ghost of what might have been. I'll never really understand everything, probably never will because mom was gone now, too, as surely as J was. I hope where ever they are now they are together.