The Last Letters Home - by Maqdiya Abdulsalam

The cardboard box on the kitchen table smelled like dust and old attics. June 14th, 2011. That was the date written in Dad’s handwriting on the masking tape across the top. I was thirty-two, and he’d been gone for eight months. Mom had finally decided to clean out the garage. “You should take his things,” she said that morning, not looking at me. “Before I throw them out.” She wouldn’t. We both knew she wouldn’t. But grief makes people say cruel things, usually to the person who understands best. I didn’t open the box for three days. I just stared at it. Dad was the kind of man who saved everything. Receipts from 1987. A broken wristwatch he swore he’d fix. Newspaper clippings about people we didn’t know. So I expected more of that. Evidence of a life spent holding on too tightly. What I found instead were letters. Hundreds of them. All addressed to me, all unsent. The first envelope was dated October 3rd, 1995. I would have been sixteen. _Ella, Today you got your driver’s license. You came home and threw the keys on the counter like it was nothing. Like you hadn’t been counting down to this day since you were fourteen. I wanted to tell you I was proud, but you rolled your eyes when I tried to hug you. You’re getting good at that. I remember when you were six and you’d climb into my lap after a bad dream. You don’t do that anymore. I guess that’s how it’s supposed to work. You get bigger and the world needs you more than I do. Drive safe. Please. Dad_ I sat down hard on the kitchen floor. The linoleum was cold through my jeans. Sixteen. That was the year I’d decided Dad was embarrassing. He wore socks with sandals. He cried at dog food commercials. He asked too many questions about my friends. The next letter was from two weeks later. _Ella, You dyed your hair black today. Mom says it looks nice. It does. But you didn’t look at me when you came down for dinner. You looked at your plate. Do you remember when you were eight and you asked me if witches were real? You’d had a nightmare. I told you the only magic was in books and the way your mom laughs. You seemed okay with that. I don’t know how to talk to you anymore without you sighing. So I’m writing this instead. Dad_ I read until my throat hurt. Letter after letter, year after year. He wrote when I graduated high school and refused to let him take pictures. He wrote when I left for college and didn’t call for a month. He wrote on my 21st birthday when I was too hungover to come to the phone. _March 12th, 2003 You’re 21 today. An adult. I bought you a scarf because your mom said you’d lost yours. I left it on your bed. You were out with friends. I never got to see if you liked it. I keep thinking about the time you were three and you fell off the swing. You split your lip and I carried you inside. You bled all over my white work shirt. I didn’t care. You wrapped your arms around my neck and said, “Daddy fix it.” I did. I fixed it. I don’t know how to fix this. Whatever this is between us. I love you. I don’t say it enough because you flinch now when I do. Dad_ The worst ones were from the last five years. The ones after Mom got sick the first time. The ones after I moved to the city and started screening his calls because “I was busy.” Busy. That was my word for him. Always busy. _November 8th, 2009 Mom’s chemo is next week. She’s scared but she won’t say it. You said you can’t make it home because of work. I understand. I do. I sat with her last night after you called. She cried after she hung up. She said you sounded tired. She told me to tell you she loves you. She tells me that every time, like I might forget to pass it on. I won’t forget. I found your old drawing of our house today. You were seven. You drew me bigger than the house. I was holding your hand. I keep it in my wallet. Dad_ I didn’t remember the drawing. I didn’t remember half the things he wrote about. But he remembered. He remembered everything. The scar on my knee from when I was ten. The way I took my coffee. The name of my fifth-grade teacher. He wrote it all down like he was afraid he’d forget, or like he was afraid I already had. The last letter was dated two weeks before he died. His handwriting was shaky. _Ella, The doctors say it’s my heart. That’s funny. I thought it broke a long time ago. I don’t have much to say that I haven’t already written. You probably won’t read these. That’s okay. Writing them helped me. It was like talking to you, even when you weren’t there. If you do read this, I need you to know something. You didn’t do anything wrong. Kids are supposed to grow up and get busy and roll their eyes at their dads. That’s the deal. I knew that when I signed up. I just wanted more time. I always wanted more time with you. From the moment you were born, 6:14 AM, eight pounds two ounces, I knew I’d never get enough time. Tell your mom I’m sorry about the garage. I’ll clean it this weekend. I love you. I love you. I love you. Dad_ He never cleaned the garage. He had the heart attack on a Thursday while taking out the trash. Mom found him. I was “busy” that day too. I got the call during a meeting I don’t even remember now. I laid on the kitchen floor for a long time, surrounded by paper. His words. The ones he never got to say out loud because I never gave him the chance. I thought of all the times I’d sighed. All the times I’d said “Dad, not now.” All the times I’d let his calls go to voicemail because I didn’t want to hear about his tomato plants or the neighbor’s dog. I’d spent years trying to get away from him. From the socks and sandals. From the dad jokes. From the way he said “I love you” at the end of every phone call until I stopped answering. And the whole time, he was in this box. Waiting. Mom found me there hours later. She didn’t say anything. She just sat down next to me and picked up a letter. She started reading, and then she was crying too. We didn’t talk. We just read. We read until the sun went down and the kitchen was dark. We buried him eight months ago. But I buried him years before that. In small ways. Every eye roll. Every unanswered call. Every holiday I said I was “too busy” to come home. I keep the letters on my nightstand now. There are 312 of them. I counted. I read one every night before I go to sleep. Sometimes I read them out loud, like he can hear me. Like I’m finally answering him. Last week I called Mom. Not because I had to. Not because it was a holiday. I just called. “Hi, Mom,” I said. “It’s Ella.” She was quiet for a second. Then she said, “I know, sweetheart. I know your voice.” We talked for an hour. About nothing. About her garden. About the weather. About Dad’s tomato plants that she kept alive after he died. Before we hung up, she said it. “I love you.” I didn’t flinch. I didn’t sigh. I didn’t rush to get off the phone. “I love you too, Mom,” I said. “I’ll call tomorrow.” And I did. I call every day now. Because I’m out of time with him. But I’m not out of time with her. Not yet. The box is empty now. But I still check it sometimes. Like maybe he wrote one more. Like maybe there’s a letter I missed. One that says he knew I’d find them. One that says he forgives me. But there isn’t. There’s just the silence where his voice used to be. And 312 letters that say everything I was too busy to hear.

Other insights from Maqdiya Abdulsalam

Referral Earning

Points-to-Coupons