From: Sylvia

Dear Jim,

My heart is so heavy today. I am sad for you, and for those
you leave behind, unutterably sad. I could hardly fathom
Linda’s words yesterday when she told me you’d taken your
own life. I am sad that you were so unhappy you saw no other
escape from your pain, no way to fill the void within you.

I knew you had been unhappy during our marriage; we both were.
I had hoped that in the years since, you’d found happiness and love.
I have found happiness and love. The source of much of that
happiness and love is Will’s presence in my life. He truly was your
gift to me. I doubt you knew that, when you talked me into having
a child together. I doubt you realized with that simple choice, you
set in motion my departure just over a year later. That gift, the child
we gave each other, the one I raised after leaving you, he’s such a
beautiful soul. In so many ways like you, which at times challenged
me and touch me still, especially today.

And, well, I’m angry too. Angry at the devastation you’ve left me,
and your family, to deal with. Angry for my son who will never
get the chance to know his biological father. Yes, Will has a Dad,
who loves him and adopted him. Still, though, he yearns to know
more of you, to know from when he comes. Now he won’t have
that opportunity.

All he’s left with is regrets. Regret that he didn’t seek you out, even
as I tell him it isn’t a child’s job to make the first advances. Worry
that his choice to be adopted, to take a new name, was a rejection
that wounded you. He feels guilt and hurt at learning that you
avoided opportunities to meet at him holidays at your father’s
home, for fear Will would reject you.

A bit about Will, if I may, Jim. He’d not have rejected you, for the
simple reason that Will loves more fiercely than anyone I’ve ever
known in my life. I remember being amazed, when he was young,
to find out just how much he loved me. He’d have loved you, too.
In his loss, he loves you. He’d also have understood, empathized
with, the depths of your pain. Over the years, as he asked about you,
I made every effort to be fair and kind in telling him what I knew of
you, of what happened between us. I told him – honestly -- that I
forgave you, forgave us both, for the pain we’d brought each other;
that what happened wasn’t entirely your fault, nor mine; that just
as it takes two people to make a marriage work, it takes two people
to let one fail; that I, too, had been at fault all that time ago.

Your father; I cannot begin to wrap my head around what he’s
feeling now. I know he was barely able to get words out over the
phone last night, and yet his words comforted Will. Your brother
was so helpful to Will in making some sense of all this. Your little
sister is heartbroken. So many people who will miss you, who
will carry a piece of your legacy of pain, with us each day from now on.

For myself, to think the world will never hear your infectious
laugh again, never see your sparkling smile, is heartbreaking.
The comfort comes in knowing that every time I hear Will laugh
or see him smile – and I’m sure I will again, though maybe not
soon – I’ll see that same sparkle, hear the infectious laugh. And
I’ll remember you, the very young man I knew and once loved.

Sylvia