Icarus Jesmond Jay//D9

Dear Mom,

I do not hate you.

I know I have said that I do in the past, but I need you to know that I do not hate you.

I resent you at times, actually a lot of the time. However, I still love you. How could I not?

I am your son, the one you should be protecting and raising. The one you should have been warm and kind towards. I know you tried, and I know life took a lot from you. That does not make the way you “raised” me okay. I use that word lightly because frankly, you did nothing of the sorts.

When I would fall down as a kid, you never wiped my tears away. You would stand there an empty shell of what you probably were long ago. I never knew who you were or who you would have been because you were robbed of all of it when your brother was taken from you to early. I know now that you longed to find a piece of Uncle Storm in me, but I am my own person. I was never going to be his replacement no matter how much you wanted me to be.

I never knew my uncle, but it seems like because of his death, I never even knew my mother.

I’m writing to you hoping that this letter would reach you better then a speech. I know you never liked to read much, but maybe this is the part of Uncle Storm that is in me and will reach you. I have tried and I have longed for you to get better, but I honestly do not know how much longer I can pretend to be the adult in our family.

I am 17, mom, can you please let me be 17?


Love always,
Icarus

Dear Me,




I know that you are full of rage.

You have so much to be angry about.

Life was not kind to you. But that is the thing isn’t it, life is not fair. It will never be fair, so you are just going to have to accept that and move on.

I know you blame mom and dad for ruining you from the start, but is it really their fault? They could not exactly do anything about it. They were dealt their cards the same way you were dealt yours. It is time to try and let the rage out. You shoved it down for too long and it is not healthy, the more you hide it, the worse it will get. If it gets much worse, then maybe there will be no saving you and mom. You already lost dad for good, do not loose mom. She has done the best she could with her circumstances.

You love mom, don’t ever forget how much you love her, do not let that anger turn into hate. You have the right to be angry, but do not hate her. She is not the enemy here. She was the one even in her worst of days that put food on the table you ate off of. She was the one that made sure you had every book you could have ever wanted. She was the one who taught you to be resourceful and skilled to survive the harshest of winters in our poorest moments. She was the one that recognized how smart you are. Do not forget any of that.

It is a work in progress and hopefully these letters will help us overcome it all one day. I believe in us even if there is almost no one left to believe in us. We need to help remind mom to breath every day now, she has completely faded away, but we can get her back. We can do anything we want to do. Nothing is a lost cause, Icarus. Not you and not mom. I take that back, dad is a lost cause, he will never be back.

It is okay to feel the confusion and confliction that you do.

It is okay to not know exactly who you are.

It is okay to be angry at the world.

We are a work in progress.

I am a work in progress.

I will never stop believing in us, Icarus, we are going to be okay in the end. We are older now and we are no longer a helpless little boy that just craved a warm embrace from his mother and a “I’m proud of you” from his father. We can be there for ourselves, and we can be proud of ourselves. Despite every single set back thrown at us in life, we are still standing, and we are going to be the rock that mom needs. Don’t hate her Icarus, she needs us.

Stand tall, Icarus. You are a good 6 feet and 5 inches. You need to stand tall and hold your head up with pride every day. Fake it till you make it. Even if you are not yet proud of who you are and where you come from, stand tall and hold your head up and one day you will be. That little boy we once were, would die knowing that we are proud young men now. That little boy scared of the world because his mother was, would be proud of how far we came. That little boy stuck in the world of his books because he was terrified of the real world, would be proud that we are no longer afraid of outside.

Never underestimate yourself.

Physically you may have never been much of a fighter, you are a tall man, but that is about the extent of your physicality. The ability to be a human giraffe. It Comes in handy whenever anyone needs to reach something from the top shelf but that is about it. You are not a physical fighter, but you are a mental one. You can make it through the challenges of life. Your mind boy, your mind is what is going to make up for the lack of brawn. Your piercing blue eyes, like moms, are intense but yours have not lost their life yet. Yours radiate the energy of someone who walks life with purpose. That is our greatest strength, we still have purpose. We have enough purpose for bother ourselves and mom.

If only we could give her some of our purpose.





Love always,
Icarus

Dear Dad,



I do not know why I am writing this. I don’t know where you are so you will never read this.

I have one last thing I need to say to you.

Fuck you, I hope you rot in hell.





Love always,
Icarus