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dear pa 

i met a new friend pa, and his name is c. strange that he told me things about you. but stranger still, he didn't know that he did!

he said you needed to go away when i was four to keep the family together. i said "great! how can together be when one is missing?" he also said it was difficult for you to be away. i said well, it mustn't have been that difficult for you always sounded happy in your letters. you were happy, weren't you? oh by the way thanks for the stuff you sent every time my birthday came around till I was, what, 17? back then, i was the envy of all the kids who went to my parties and who always asked where i got my name from. you must admit ours is a funny name! well those dumb kids easily got distracted by my new toy car or casio watch that i never had to answer any of them. ha! i was always years and years ahead of them in the brain department. anyway, i don't remember now if i ever thanked you for those gifts in the letters that ma made me write every time you sent money. so...well, thanks.

i hope you don't mind my telling stories to c. i'm like that with my friends. i trust them with my problems at school, at work, with money, with ma, with heartbreaks. oh you know, stuff. i treat them like family, my friends - we're always together and no walking out the door despite whatever. that talk with c was like, uhm, feeling my skin for the first time. or something like that. yeah...something like that. but pa, the more i think about it, that talk with c, the more i become sure that at the back of mind i know that what he told me i had known all along. if only i could read minds i wouldn't be second-guessing things you didn't say. but then again you and i were never in close-y cooey movie-kind of a relationship so even if had that talent i wouldn't know when to use it. and you were a very old man when you finally came home for good and by then i was too old to coo. and to my mind, old and old just doesn't have the magic that old and young does. oh i'm sure you know what i mean for you never came around either. and when you finally did, like i said, we were both old and we talked about things that adults who don't have anything deep and big to say to each other talk about. 

and oh, c's a writer, in fact he's writing a children's book. did you know i missed out on those children's books? oh you sent me the little house on the prairie series (remember?) but they do not count for nobody was around to read them to me so i had to wait till i became a good reader to enjoy them. yeah i was no longer a child when i started and finished with them. 

and now that i mentioned c's writing...guess what? i'm a writer too! well sort of. guess you saw that one coming, huh? i mean i didn't become a doctor or got enlisted like you did so you probably thought i'd become one of those artsy-fartsy-head-in-the-clouds individuals. and right you were! haha but i could've been what you hoped for me to be if only you told me yourself instead of having ma tell me. you know how i don't fear her and she's too busy keeping the family together to focus on just her youngest.

where was i? oh, writing, right! well i write poetry and stuff. people tell me i make them cry. they do! funny because i myself don't get so emotionally tangled up when i write those mushy whatnots...until now. until this. sheesh! i was crying even before i wrote "dear pa". oh do you know i'm such a crybaby? bet that one, and i'm sure as hell, surprised you! ha! but no worries, i don't blame you really. you weren't there every time i cried. like when i fell from trees and bruised myself, or puffed that first marlboro - your brand - in your honor. or maybe you do know...for i remember feeling your eyes on me when i wept like a baby four years ago at your funeral.

lastly, i apologize if it took me this long to write you a short one (NOT!) but i know you know i haven't forgotten you. and i never will. like how could i when every time i look ma in the eyes i see your face.

as i end this pa, it's weird but i'm beginning to realize how really strange life is.  because 

now i feel as though it's me who left and can't 

wait to come home.