To Linda, from Bridget

Dear Linda,

This isn’t the first message I’ve written to you. I penned out a couple of pages
right after you died, and sent another short one to you online. I’m compelled

to write again today because I saw you last night. It was just a dream, and I
know it wasn’t really you, but you were there anyway. You were already sick,
with papery skin and a crochet hat to cover your bare head. It was just last
night and I already forget most of it. I think you were trying to warn me about
your sickness, to give me more time with you. I missed almost all of your last
year of life. It was kind of your fault, because you kept turning me away when
I asked to visit, but I could have pushed harder. Instead, I got to see you twice
shortly before you died. I’m so thankful for that, but I wanted more.

You said goodbye to me on the last visit that I had with you when you were coherent.
That might have been a week or so before you died. You were in and out a little bit
then, and you knew the end was near. How heartbreaking to have my dying friend
know that she was leaving soon, and to tell me that she’d miss me and would see
me in Heaven. I’m fighting tears at the thought. You told me to tell my husband that
you loved him, and I never did. I never managed to form the words.

I had to take a little break there. Kept crying. I’m going to try not to for the rest of this. 

It’s been 6 and a half months. I think about you most days in some way. I couldn’t
talk about you without crying at first. That’s gotten better. I don’t miss you less,
but I can function more easily. You were one of my very best friends, despite the
30 years between our ages. I’ll forever miss our easy lunches, our silly shopping trips,
your quick meals that you’d always throw together for me so I would never leave your
house hungry. You truly were a second mother to me, often kinder than my own mother.
Certainly more understanding, at least. Not that I don’t love her, but she raised me.
She had to be firm and you never did.

My husband and I have been trying to have a baby since right after you died. Years ago
you told me you had babysitting dibs and wanted to be an adopted grandma for my baby.
I’m heartbroken that you never will. I had a miscarriage in August and I hope that you’re
looking after that baby. 

Even after all this time, it’s still unreal. I often expect to bump into you at the store on accident,
like I used to. Or I’ll see you behind the wheel of some car on the road. You’re everywhere.
And nowhere.

This has taken on a major rambling quality. No poetry here, huh? But there’s not much
poetic about cancer and dying, is there? Just know that I love you and miss you as much
as ever and that there’s little I wouldn’t give for another lunch with you. We’d pack a
lifetime’s worth of visiting into those couple of hours. I’ll see you in Heaven.

So much love,

Bridget

To Sammy, From Isabelle

Dear Sammy,
It's the four year anniversary of your death. I miss you so much, I
can't even describe it.

I never got to meet you but you saved my life,
and I never got to thank you.

We have the same birthday. I am now
exactly the same age you were when you died.

You once told me that the iron in our blood can only
be found in dying stars, that we're being
kept alive by stardust. That really helped me. I'm getting a star
tattoo on my wrist for our birthday.

I wrote a "letter" to you for
English and my teacher said it was one of the best things
she had ever read. It was basically a watered-down version of this,
but God, I just have so much to say that I couldn't let a teacher read.

I don't know if I can say how much you meant to me, how much 
you still mean to me. I'll never get to hug you, or thank you for pulling
me out of that dark place I was in during 9th grade, or say goodbye, 
and nobody will ever know who they guy that hit you was, 
or what he was thinking when he just drove away after hitting another person 
with his car, or what your last words were. 

There are so many thibgs I wish we could have
done, and now none of that is possible. I'm really sorry it took me
this long to try to talk to you, but I honestly haven't been able to
even think about it.

 I thought of the idea of writing to you a few
days ago, and to be honest, I'm not sue if this will work but even if
it doesn't, I'll be able to get all my feelings out, and if it does
work, then you'll know how much you impacted my life.
I love you and I miss you and I hope you're happy wherever you are,
Isabelle

To: Fryderyk Chopin. From: A person you might or might not know, a person which admires you

Dear Fryderyk, I've heard a lot about Your suffering through your life.
I feel very close to you, alttough we both are from different centuries.

Sometimes you appear in my dreams, and your great music too.
Those dreams kind of work as if they were my memories. Sleeping to your
music gives me very intense feelings such as my muscles jumping around, 

and all the things. It's because I have great empathy to what it must've feel 

like having rhe nightmares you had. You know which nightmares.

Your music is a reflection of your deep feelings. For me it works as if you're
telling me the story. I admire your music because It's my pleasure knowing
all this sorrow, beauty, all of this power lies in your music, knowing you were
able to write it all down in letters and your music.  which travels trough my
muscles when I fall asleep to your great art. You'd be surprised how much I
know about you. Some things I get from studies, but the rest comes to my
head as an information with an unknown source.

Yes, I know you had nightmares. Your muscles did the same those nights right?
And when you started coughing up blood, it all got worse. All this traumatic
memories from your illness, when you were a child. I get homesick for Poland
every time I hear your music. Those days in Paris...Yes...I know. I wasn't born
 in Poland, but I guess your music transfers it all to my veins. I was born in Prague.

 I'm not a psychic medium, but I'd love to meet you closer. I know we have a lot to
tell to each other. But how? Letters? Send them where? The world you're at is made
from spirit. Altrough there's a barrier between two of us, I think we would find a way
how could I have a talk with you. A talk from mine world, and you from yours.

Please send me a letter, I believe spirits have such abilities. Please talk to me,
please at least just try. Your music brings an empathy with your sorrows to me,
it makes me happy that this letter is a hope that you might read it. Thank you
and sending you much love from the material world for all of those who mourn
for you and to those who like your music and like you too. 

To Doug from Debbie.

To: Doug  From: Debbie


I always thought that I'd see you again.

I never imagined that time would be so short, that you'd just drop dead at 52. 
Shopping for a toaster on New Years Eve. How ridiculously mundane. 
You'd be so embarrassed if you knew.

I never ever stopped loving you, you know. Well no, no, I guess you
didn't know. You didn't know that that was why I couldn't see you.
It could have spoiled everything. Our lives had already been ripped
to shreds once. I couldn't do that again, couldn't risk what I'd made
out of the ashes. It was never your fault, you tried so damned
hard to do the right thing, but my parents wouldn't let you and we
were both too young and naive to know how to make things turn out
differently. And then after, after,I just couldn't stay with you and keep
on living. I just couldn't imagine how to keep looking into your eyes
and not see hers, forever and ever and ever, and I couldn't
figure out how to leave you without being cruel. I'm sure you never 
knew how much I hated myself for that.

When I found her I thought my heart would just stop beating, or that it would 
beat its way out of my chest. The first time I talked to her on the phone I 
kept holding my breath, so anxious to hear her every word, every movement, 
every breath, so anxious to say only the right things, to be what she needed 
me to be and not to say anything that might spook her or scare her or claim 
anything at all. I told her, that very first time, that I knew where you were,
 that I had all your information and could give it to her when she wanted. 
She wasn't ready. She hadn't even yet thought about finding a father, at all,
 she was looking for her mother, looking for me, looking for ME, 
how amazing, looking for me. 

And so I waited, and then, of course, of course, it shattered us once again. 
Christmas day, early, you called me out of the blue, so unexpected after so 
many years, you called me to give me the exciting news, you'd found her,
 found our daughter, she'd been looking for me, posted online looking for me, 
you'd found her. You'd found her. You were so happy to give me this gift. 
I had just moments, a breath, a heartbeat, to think, to decide... and then I 
told you the truth, that I'd found her too, just months ago, that we'd talked, 
that I'd given her your information but she wasn't ready yet to talk to you...
 I could hear your heart breaking over the phone.  I told you I was sure she'd 
contact you, maybe not soon, she had a new baby and all, but she would 
contact you, certainly, sometime, absolutely. I wrote down your email address 
for her, your new phone number. You said goodbye. I sat quietly with my 
husband watching me cry as my heart broke once more. 

Twenty four years on, and the pain still fresh and raw as the day I let her 
be taken from my arms.

We never spoke again. Nine more years, and we never spoke again. 

I guess you never forgave me for not letting you know I'd found her right away,
 for choosing to honor her wishes. Even after she'd contacted you, you never 
forgave me, I guess. But I'll never know, will I? I'll never ever know. I thought 
there was plenty of time.  I kept thinking I'd call you again someday. Someday,
 someday. Or you'd call me. Or she'd get us together. Something. Someday.
 I never ever imagined that that call was the end, forever. I'd have kept you 
on the line longer, had I known.

I hadn't heard from her in many months when she called to tell me you were 
dead, that your sister had found information about her in your belongings 
and had contacted her to let her know. She wanted to be the one to tell me. 
She knew I'd want to know. Your death brought us closer together once again. 
One last little irony.  

I always thought that I'd see you again. 

Damn it Doug. 

I always thought I'd see you again, when we were old and gray and it 
couldn't hurt any more. People in your family didn't die young, after all. 
Your much older sisters are both still alive, 10 years after your death. 

Damn it, Doug. 

Damn it. 

I always thought that I'd see you again.