Dear Emily…

Dear Emily, Happy 18th Birthday! I know you probably didn’t expect this letter, but there was no way I was going to forget my pumpkin’s big day! After all, 18 is an important number. You’re officially an adult now! And as your father, I thought it would help you if I gave you some advice. You know. From father to daughter. It’s an important year for you no doubt. You just started college. It’s a new place. And that means new people and new experiences.It’s the beginning of a lot of things. And now that you’re an adult, I want to treat you like one. You know what’s right and what’s wrong and I hope you’ll keep that in mind once you’re on your own. I don’t want want to sound preachy but do look after yourself! Make friends you can count on. Ones that won’t leave you hanging when you’re in a bind. I know you miss your school friends but trust me on this, it’s the friends you make now that’ll be with you for the rest of your life. And don’t let anyone define who you are. You just be you and if people can’t deal with that, then you don’t need them in your life. Basically what I’m trying to say is, just keep doing what you’re doing.

I know you’re studying hard for your exams now but it would do you good to take some time off. You always work yourself too hard. Look up from those books and smell the air once and while. Look around. See people. Meet people. If you don’t, you might miss life as it goes by.

I think that’s enough of the lecture, don’t you? Because there’s another reason why I wrote this letter. There’s something else I wanted to talk about. As I said before, you’re an adult now so I want to treat you like one. I want to tell you about something. Something that happened 18 years ago.

It’s been 18 years. 18 years since it happened. I still find it difficult to talk about, but I have to. You have a right to know.

About what happened to Mom.

It was late. I wasn’t in my right senses. I had just been fired. I could make up a ton of excuses for what I did, but it would never rid me of my guilt. Your mom refused to let me in the house because I was drunk, so I got angry. I kept knocking, hammering on the door, demanding that she let me in. But she wouldn’t budge. I got so furious that I kicked the door down and I….

There was so much blood. So much. I wanted to scream. To sob away the horror that was in front of me. All I could do was stand in the mess I had created.

Emily. Why do I call you Emily? You never were, and never will. The fact that you’re gone just hurts even more now. I’m living in this illusion. One I don’t want to escape. Is it possible to kill something that hasn’t been born yet? As if that justifies anything But that’s what I tell myself as I go to sleep, every day for the last 18 years.

But I can’t keep running away from the past.

These letters are the life that I wish you had. The life I took away. I have no right to ask you anything and yet if there’s one thing you could do for your old man, it would make me grateful.

I don’t belong in heaven, but I would still like to see my daughter’s face. Just give your daddy a smile from those golden gates, so that he may go to hell in peace.

Please Emily?

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