Gramps,
I miss you, I need you, and I’m scared to
death, this “life” thing is a whole lot harder than I thought. Since September
I have dropped out of school, walked out on a job, and tried to kill myself but
failed miserably, I’ll expound more on that later. I thought I was ready for
school, I was excited, or at least I was doing a good job of pretending to be.
I was telling everybody of all these grandiose plans I had for myself, how I
was going to do, “a,” “b” and “c” and become successful in so many ways, and then….kaput. All it took was one class for me to quit, and
although you didn’t raise a quitter that’s exactly what I’ve become. I remember sitting in class doing my best to
absorb everything that was being taught, then going home that night and reading
the assigned chapter three times, and not retaining any of it. I did that for
the first week; I listened intently and studied hard. Still, no matter how much I studied, I was
still absent from class discussions, not physically, but mentally. My
frustration turned to anger, which turned to self-pity, and I did what I do
best, tucked my tail between my legs and quit.
After dropping
out of school my depression worsened and the idea of taking my own life started
to sound like a viable alternative. I
mean let’s take a step back and look at my life; I’m thirty-seven, I don’t have
a skill or a trade, I lack motivation and have not a clue what I want to do
with my life. Oh, and for arguments
sake, even if I was to somehow muster the motivation and drive I'm pretty sure
it wouldn't do much good anyway. See, my
memory and wit have taken a back seat to fog and stupidity. I forget the names
of random objects at times, and my word retrieval is horrible, and those are
just couple of examples. Case and
point(s) at one of my recent sessions with my shrink, I picked up a coaster to
fiddle with while we were talking, but at the time I couldn’t for the life of
me remember that what I was holding was called a “coaster,” the best I could
come up with was, “drink holder thing.” It gets better, and by better I mean
worse. I picked up a friend at the
airport over the summer, and it took a good forty five minutes to an hour for
me to remember where I parked my car. I never considered myself “smart”, but I
always had the memory of an elephant, and now I feel as though I’m losing my
faculties. Gramps, I’m so, so very scared, but I digress.
I don’t want to
leave out this little gem; The other day my neighbor asked if I worked with
computers, not because I ooze intelligence, but because he has never seen me
leave my house and assumed I worked remotely, which brings me to one of the
biggest reasons why I don’t want to live. Gramps, you are the only reason why I
am able to pay my bills, eat, etc.
Without your money I would be living on the street. I am ungrateful, unappreciative, and hate the
person I see in the mirror; frankly I am doing this world a disservice by
living. I wish I had the “balls,” (excuse
my language) to go through with taking my life that Thursday afternoon, then at
least I wouldn’t be wasting your money.
Actually the act of suicide would work out two fold, as I wouldn’t be
the burden I am to Aunt Becky. I can only imagine what she thinks of me, as she
has gone from being an aunt to a thirty something, to the mother of a helpless
and hapless child. To take it a step further, I took it upon myself to research
funeral costs, and considering that we already have a family plot, my funeral
would cost no more than a few months ‘rent. And who knows, maybe the leasing
office will take pity on our family and not keep my, I mean your security
deposit. At some point you just have to
“cut bait."
Lastly, I just
want tell you how sorry I am. You gave me the world, and I pissed all over it.
The only thing I hope is that what I have done with my life in no way reflects
my love for you. I love you so much, you
are everything to me. Biologically you are my grandfather, but for all intents
and purposes you are my father. You are
also my best friend, as well as my idol.
You are everything I wish I could be, you always loved me
unconditionally, and don’t you ever think that for one moment I didn’t
appreciate that. I’m not sure it’s
humanly possible to love someone any more than I love you. Hopefully I won’t get to heaven before you;
because I’m not sure Peter would let me in.
Kris.
