February 1st, 2010
Dear Dad,
I haven’t heard back from you. I’m hoping that’s a good sign. My mailbox seems depressed about it, though. I can’t get the little flag to stay up. It just keeps falling back down.
The dog still doesn’t have a name. Rhonda calls it Cassandra, but that’s obviously not a good dog name. Dogs are named Prince and Sparky and Snoopy and stuff like that. Maybe if it was a poodle you could call it Cassandra. But this dog is clearly a mutt. It should have a name that fits its muttness.
I had a weekend off from basketball practice. We have our first game next Friday. It’s a home game. I wonder how much I’ll get to play. Not many people come to middle school games, other than parents. It’s not like the high school games I’ve gone to for Stephan or Keith, where the stands are packed with people. At our soccer games, it was all moms talking to each other and dads watching. Mom couldn’t come to many, because she had to work. You couldn’t come because you were dead. Both are pretty good excuses, I guess.
I think about you all the time, wondering where you may be right now. Are you lost in the woods? Did you somehow make it to heaven or some other place? I can’t get my head around what kind of place you might be in. And you don’t know anything except that there’s water nearby and woods nearby. For all you know, you could be on a dinky little island. You might get a mile into the woods and come to the other side of the island. Or maybe you’re on the edge of some huge continent, like Russia, and you’ll just keep walking and walking and walking.
And maybe I’ll never find out. Maybe I’ll never get a reply to this letter.
Your son,
Tom
Dear Dad,
I haven’t heard back from you. I’m hoping that’s a good sign. My mailbox seems depressed about it, though. I can’t get the little flag to stay up. It just keeps falling back down.
The dog still doesn’t have a name. Rhonda calls it Cassandra, but that’s obviously not a good dog name. Dogs are named Prince and Sparky and Snoopy and stuff like that. Maybe if it was a poodle you could call it Cassandra. But this dog is clearly a mutt. It should have a name that fits its muttness.
I had a weekend off from basketball practice. We have our first game next Friday. It’s a home game. I wonder how much I’ll get to play. Not many people come to middle school games, other than parents. It’s not like the high school games I’ve gone to for Stephan or Keith, where the stands are packed with people. At our soccer games, it was all moms talking to each other and dads watching. Mom couldn’t come to many, because she had to work. You couldn’t come because you were dead. Both are pretty good excuses, I guess.
I think about you all the time, wondering where you may be right now. Are you lost in the woods? Did you somehow make it to heaven or some other place? I can’t get my head around what kind of place you might be in. And you don’t know anything except that there’s water nearby and woods nearby. For all you know, you could be on a dinky little island. You might get a mile into the woods and come to the other side of the island. Or maybe you’re on the edge of some huge continent, like Russia, and you’ll just keep walking and walking and walking.
And maybe I’ll never find out. Maybe I’ll never get a reply to this letter.
Your son,
Tom
Filed under Letters from Son | Tags: afterlife, basketball, dog, fatherhood, junior high school, letter, middle school, purgatory, writing | Comment (0)