I Must Go, My Dandelion

Darling,

You are reading this and I am gone. This is my own version of a goodbye; original, no, impersonal, yes. But it is the one I have chosen and it will have to do for us both. Perhaps, in this one particular way, I am a coward.

Reading this, I suppose you will wonder what you have done wrong. Don't, please don't. It is a troubling thought and, moreover, an unnecessary one. You have done nothing wrong and I harbor no ill feelings toward you. There was no act of yours, singular or otherwise, that spurned my departure. I loved you as much as a man could love any child. You have always been beautiful, like fresh oxygen, giving off the highest kind of breath. You were always something that filled me. I am empty now, but not because of you. The truth is, I have been empty for quite some time.

This now, for me, will become difficult. I would like to take this moment to write about your mother. And, please know, this is the hardest thing I have ever done.

In the coming days you will hear certain things. You will read them, see them on the television, they will broadcast them on the radio. Neighbors will discuss them, relatives will call, reporters will show up at the house shoving microphones and notebooks in your face. People who never knew you and who will never know you will suddenly think they do. They will think their sympathy means understanding. They will call you "that poor girl." They will curse me.

What they will tell you is true. What you will read, and hear, and be told. It is all of it true.

I am sorry. I am not in much of a place to ask anything of you, but I hope that you will ignore what of it you can. You will not be able to ignore it all, you will have to listen to some things. You may even have to talk about it. It is the situation I've put you in. I have to take that with me, forever.

Please do not think me some kind of monster. I am not. At least, I do not think I am. And I refuse to let others paint me as that portrait. I have done monstrous things, yes, but do those few acts transform me into the beast itself? What about the birthdays, the parties, the gifts, the hugs and kisses and stories good night. The lullabies and popsicles, trips to the zoo and trips to the country. When we held hands and crossed the street. When you came to me, crying, hoping that I would make all of it better. When we said we loved each other. The years, the absolute years. Is all of it gone now? Does one heinous act erase a lifetime of good?

I pray to God, every night now, that it does not. And I know I have already asked one thing of you, but I will ask one more—Will you pray for me as well? Because I would like to stay. And try to make some sense of all of this. But I must go, my dandelion, and now you know why. And I hope that you will understand why I chose the coward's way out, to use a phrase I am sure you will hear. But they would be wrong, for my cowardice ends with this letter. I refuse to let them turn me into what they want me to be. But I am terrified that what they want me to be is what I've become. And, moreover, what I have always been.

William Percy French wrote these words:

"Remember me is all I ask,

        And yet

If the remembrance prove a task,

        Forget."

They seem quite fitting as final ones.

All my love,

D.