End Note
Dear Kyle,
If you’re reading this before you’ve taken me somewhere beautiful, then congratulations, you are as stubborn as I expected you to be, and also, exactly as predictable.
Don’t you go getting all guilty on me. I’m dead, not delicate.
Now, listen.
First things first: I love you. I have loved you since you were a skinny little thing with scraped knees and an attitude you couldn’t afford yet. You always looked at the world like it was daring you, and you looked right back like, try me . That fire is one of the best things about you.
It is also the thing that will eat you alive if you don’t learn how to tend it.
I’ve been watching you these last few years, Kyle. Not just with my eyes—don’t get smart—but with the part of me that knows people. You think you hide things. You think because you smile and crack jokes and keep moving that nobody can tell you’re running. But I can.
You carry too much on your shoulders. That’s your grandpoppy in you—the part that thinks love is proved by how much weight you can hold without dropping it. And, Lord, you can hold a lot. You always have.
But love isn’t a contest. It’s not a dare. It’s not you taking one more hit and pretending it doesn’t hurt.
I’m going to say something you won’t like. You’ve been punishing yourself.
You tell yourself you’re just “living.” You say you’re chasing freedom, chasing the sky, chasing that next hit of adrenaline.
But I have watched you choose danger the way other men choose a bottle.
You don’t do it because you don’t care whether you live.
You do it because you don’t know what to do with all the living when the noise finally gets quiet.
That numbness creeping in? That’s not toughness. That’s a callus on your soul, Kyle. And calluses keep you from feeling the very thing you’re trying so hard not to lose.
And then I have to go and die on you, right?
It’s okay. I know you’re not ready to let me go. And that’s why I chose you to be the one to scatter my ashes. Not because I don’t love your sisters—you know I do—but because I know you need this from me.
We don’t often get to choose when to let someone go, you see. Life has a way of ripping things away when we least expect it. Maybe it’s better that way sometimes. Maybe God knows we need it to be that way.
But for all your bravery, in all your bumps and bruises, you never were one to rip the bandage off unless someone forced you to.
Some folks say the word love without understanding how to show it.
You show it without having to say it. And I think, maybe, that’s because you feel things deeper than most.
So, I’m not going to force you to let me go—yet.
Not yet. Not until you’re ready. Until you’ve let yourself have a good cry.
Until you’ve made peace with the fact that I knew this world wasn’t my final destination and that I am JOYFUL.
I lived a good life, Kyle. Doesn’t mean there wasn’t pain.
But the love? My family? That made my life better than I could have chosen for myself.
I want you to be joyful too. Pay attention to my word choice. Not “happy.” That comes and goes. Joy is what comes from having a life well-lived.
So, here’s what we’re going to do.
When you’re ready, you’re going to take my ashes somewhere that makes you feel small in the best possible way. A place that cracks you open—that you have to earn. And when you do, you’re going to say, OUT LOUD, what you’ve been refusing to say:
That you’re scared.
That you’re tired.
That you miss me.
That you don’t always know how to be alone with your own heart.
You can swear while you do it. I won’t tell Jesus. Lord knows I swear too.
Now. I don’t know what state you’ll be in when you read this.
But I do know this. You are not meant to do life alone.
You’ve got a family and friends who love you something fierce, even when they fuss and flap and act like they’re trying to smother you with affection.
Let them love you. It won’t kill you, I promise. That kind of love can’t be bought.
And if you’ve managed to make enough time for a woman in your life again—one who makes you feel like your ribs are made of kindling and your heart is a match—then let yourself love her the way you deserve to be loved. Don’t make a religion out of the pain that heartbreak brings.
If you treat yourself like a whole person, I promise, someone else will too. The world will knock you down again and again, and the only way you can spit in its eye is to fight. Never give up that fight.
And I want you to practice something you’re terrible at—letting yourself be known.
Sometimes the road we tread isn’t direct or easy.
Sometimes the route is bumpy, but those bumps and turnarounds grow and change you, often for the better.
And often for the right person at the right time.
So don’t worry if you get it wrong, because all those wrongs will eventually lead you to the something right.
Also, take care of your body.
I’m not joking. You only get one body. And when you’re my age, you’ll wish you’d taken better care of it.
There is bravery, and then there is stupidity dressed up in confidence.
You’re anything but stupid. Ask yourself whether you’re neglecting your body to feel alive .
. . or whether you’re doing it to avoid feeling anything at all.
Then choose the thing that lets you keep your heart feeling everything it’s supposed to feel.
Now stop reading, wipe your face, and go do what you were made to do.
And my darling grandson?
I’m proud of you.
Even when you’re a mess.
Especially when you’re a mess.
Love you most,
Granny
P.S. If you scatter me somewhere boring, I will absolutely haunt your ass. And I’ll start with your left sock. You won’t ever find it again.
P.P.S. I know how much you love me, too.