Letters people shared.

You were so kind. I was so unable to receive it. I left a relationship with a person who was cruel and walked into yours and could not understand why being treated well felt like a costume. I broke up with you because I was not ready. I hope you got over it fast. You deserved someone who could meet …

I did not handle it well. I cried. You thought I was crying because I was disappointed. I was crying because I was scared for you in a world that I knew would not be soft. I should have said that out loud. I am saying it now. I have always been on your side. I just got the shape …

My son is a doctor in Lexington now. He drives back twice a year. He brings his husband. The neighbors are mostly kind. The neighbors are mostly tired. I am the old white man on the porch and I am the father of a son and his husband and I do not see the contradiction the way other people seem …

You did not deserve the way I told you. I said it in the car in the parking lot of the Olive Garden. You had not even gotten your breadsticks. I should have done it at home, sober, on a Saturday. I did it on a Tuesday because I was a coward. The breadsticks part is what I am most …

The aide says you ask for me on Wednesdays. I drive down on the third Sunday of every month. It is not the same Sunday I would have come if I had been raised better. I am trying to make it up by being the one who shows up. I know that is not the same thing. I am doing …

I am the age you were when you taught me to drive the F-150. I think about that all the time now. You were scared. I see it now. You hid it behind the cigarette and the radio. I am scared too. I do not know how to be a father to a daughter. I am doing it anyway, the …

I do not need you to call me Mom. I never have. I need you to know that when you came home at 2 a.m. last Friday and threw up in the downstairs bathroom, I sat on the hallway floor on the other side of the door so you would not be alone. I did not tell your dad. I …

You will never love me the way I want you to. I have accepted this. I love your son well. That has to be enough for both of us.

I bought your brand of coffee at the store on accident. Stood in the aisle holding it like a fool. The girl stocking shelves asked if I was alright. I said "my dad drank this" and she just nodded.

You called me on a Thursday in March and you said "I owe you an inventory." You read it for forty-one minutes. I did not say a word. I cried into a kitchen towel. When you finished you said "that's all" and we hung up. That was four years ago. I have the towel in a drawer. I will never …

You did not talk about the camp. You talked about the Cubs. I understand now that the Cubs were how you stayed in the world. I take my son to Wrigley every July. I tell him you sat in the bleachers in 1969. I do not tell him about the number on your arm. I will. When he is old …

You came to every single one of my softball games for seven years and I treated you like the postman. You stood at the back of the chapel at my wedding because you weren't sure if you were allowed up front. You were allowed up front. I should have walked you up there myself. I am sorry.

You will read this someday and roll your eyes. Roll them. I will still love you the way I do tonight, sitting outside your closed door, listening to you cry.

You moved to Boston in 2003 and you have not been to a single one of Dad's birthdays since. I cover for you. I do not want to anymore. He is eighty-one. Buy the plane ticket. Sit in the chair. Eat the cake. I am tired of being the one who stays.

Brooklyn boy. I keep the hoodie in the closet. I have not washed it. It does not smell like you anymore. It does not smell like anything. I open the closet every morning and put my face in it anyway. The other mothers in the group say this will end. I am not in a hurry for it to end. …

The kids speak Tagalog with the accent of Texas. I am sorry. I send money on the 15th. I know money is not the thing. I know. Lola fell again last month. She asked if I would be home for the rainy season. I said yes. I do not know if I meant it. Tell her I meant it.

I miss you. I do not miss the things you said. Both can be true. I do not know if there is a way back. I am not writing to find one. I am writing to admit, in private, that twenty-six years of friendship should have been worth more than the things we said in five months.

You waited for me three Tuesdays in a row when I was running with the stroller in the rain. You did not have to. The schedule said you didn't. I never learned your name. I quit the job that made me late. I take the train now. I think about you when it rains. I hope someone is waiting for …

The boys are not going to be the story. I know it feels like the story. I know the lunchroom is the whole world. It is not. In twenty years you will not remember any of their names. You will remember your best friend's mother teaching you to make stew. Eat the stew.

You weren't a bad person. You were a person in a lot of pain who had one thing that worked for thirty minutes. I am not ashamed of you. I just don't need you anymore.