Hey son, it's me, dad. I know you probably don't want to hear about all I want to tell you but there's a lot of life lessons I want to teach you that you need to know. I'm leaving you this book in hopes that as you're growing up you'll be able to read it and learn from some of the lessons I'll leave you.
Look, life is hard. I get it. You're going to experience a lot. I want you to know one thing though. Everything you experience in your life happens for a reason. That's something I wish I knew a lot sooner as a kid. All the countless hours I stayed up in bed tossing and turning thinking about how much of a different life I would have if my dad (your grandfather) hadn't left me and my mom.
It really shook me to the core.
I would fantasize family dinners, my dad teaching me handy work, reading more bedtime stories with my mom- more than I would have liked to. I had a whole world in my head. Sometimes even envisioning a brother or sister I would have if my father had stayed with us.
Growing up with my grandparents wasn't that bad, however. They did raise me with great music, whereas whenever I would be with my mom we would always listen to hardcore rap. I didn't mind, I loved my mom, so the little time I spent with her meant everything to me. Even though living with my grandparents continued to get more difficult during the teenage years, I still loved them. They didn't have to adopt me and take me under their wings when my mother was financially struggling, but they did, they saved her life and quite possibly my own. I owe them a lot for that.
It wasn't until around the age of 16 I started to realize how different my life would be, had my dad not left. I sat in bed one night looking at pictures of me and my friend Jack in first grade. You know Jack, my best friend who always babysat for you and the one who taught you how to swim. Anyways, I was in bed looking at the pictures of me and him and a thought hit me like a brick almost knocking me off my bed.
You see, son. That night I realized something. Had my dad not left me, my grandparents never would have taken me in, they never would have sent me to a school where I'd meet my best friend, I'd never be sent to a high school where I got to spend the next four years of my life with him. I'm not saying I was happy that your grand mother was doing bad financially, no. What to take from this is that even in the darkness a light will always come out of it. Jack, for example, being the light to come out of that dark.
You're going to be put through shit growing up. I won't lie to you. You're going to get bullied, you're going to discover yourself as a person, you're going to make friends who maybe aren't so good for you, and the scariest of all, at one point you will fall in love. I know what all this shit is like.
Please, son. I pray that introduction was enough to make you want to read further.
I want to help you with the shit.
- Love, Dad.
