We Are Not Ourselves(196)

What matters most right now is that you hear how much I want you to live your life and enjoy it. I don’t want you to be held back by what’s happened to me.

I want you to know that I loved my work and did some good with it, and I believe that is worth more than any amount of money. I have not given you a lifetime of riches, but I have faith I have given you a father you can be proud of.

You will not have me there to speak to about the major events of your life, the ups and downs. But when the hardest times come, I want you to think of this:

Picture yourself in one of your cross-country races. It’s a hard pace this day. Everyone’s outrunning you. You’re tired, you didn’t sleep enough, you’re hungry, your head is down, you’re preparing for defeat. You want much from life, and life will give you much, but there are things it won’t give you, and victory today is one of them. This will be one defeat; more will follow. Victories will follow too. You are not in this life to count up victories and defeats. You are in it to love and be loved. You are loved with your head down. You will be loved whether you finish or not.

But I want to tell you: this is worth summoning some courage for. It doesn’t matter that you win; it matters that you run with pride, that you finish strong. Years will pass in an instant, I will be gone. Will you remember me on the sidelines, cheering for you? I will not always be here, but I leave you with a piece of my heart. You have had the lion’s share as long as you have lived.

When I am gone, I want you to hear my voice in your head. Hear it when you most need to, when you feel most hopeless, when you feel most alone. When life seems too cruel, and there seems too little love in it. When you feel you have failed. When you don’t know what the point is. When you cannot go on. I want you to draw strength from me then. I want you to remember how much I cherished you, how I lived for you. When the world seems full of giants who dwarf you, when it feels like a struggle just to keep your head up, I want you to remember there is more to live for than mere achievement. It is worth something to be a good man. It cannot be worth nothing to do the right thing.

The world is closing in on me. I have begun a race of my own. There will be no laurels waiting at the finish line, no winner declared. My reward will be to leave this life behind.

I want you never to forget my voice.

My beloved boy, you mean the world to me.





99


His mother was reading the newspaper over a cup of tea. There was a plate of cookies in front of her. She had set him up with a cup and saucer.

“Well?” she asked. “What did it say?”

He stood in the doorway. “I didn’t finish.”

“Why didn’t you finish? You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Here, sit down.”

He made his way to the chair. He had the letter in his hand. He placed it on the table next to his saucer.

“Why didn’t you finish reading it?”

“I read it,” he said.

“You just told me you didn’t finish it.”

“I finished it, Mom.” He could feel his lip quivering. “Give me a second to think.”

“Fine. Tell me when you’re ready.”

He took a cookie in order to do something. They were the jelly-topped ones she liked, butter cookies. He took a bite but didn’t chew it. He let the little chunk dissolve on his tongue.

“I said I didn’t finish,” he said. “I didn’t mean the letter. I meant something else.”

“Didn’t finish what? What the hell are you talking about? You’re not making sense.”

“College,” he said. “I didn’t finish college.”

“Of course you did,” she said quickly, taking a cookie.

“I didn’t.”

“What are you telling me?”

“I didn’t finish college. I was a couple of classes short, and I just came home.”

She gave him a long, hard look and chewed slowly.

“You’re telling the truth now?”

“Why would I lie about this?”

“You tell me. You’ve been lying all along, apparently.” She took another cookie and ate it quickly. He did the same, to distract himself from the anxiety he was feeling.

“I didn’t lie. I just didn’t tell the truth.”

“You’re telling me you don’t have a diploma?”

“I don’t,” he said.

She sighed, put her face in her hands. “Is that why you’re working at that goddamned building?” Her voice was muffled a little from talking through her hands.

“Yes,” he said. “Maybe. I don’t know anymore.”

“It is,” she said, practically shouting. “That’s exactly why you are.” Her face had brightened, not with joy but with the glow of an insight. “That’s exactly why. That’s not the kind of kid I raised. I knew it. I knew something was fishy. I should have seen this myself. I don’t know how I missed it.”

She had a faraway look in her eye, as if she was figuring out the solution to several problems at once. Her expression opened up in a way he hadn’t seen in a while. The stress of the last years with his father had taken some of the fullness from her face and left lines in its place.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I know you’re angry.”