March 24th, 2018
"Dear Simone,
How could I ever describe my friend, my family, James Munro Leaf, to you?
One of the only times you met him, you were quiet, and slept on his chest, and didn't cry, and I said "She likes you." And he said, "Oh, that’s good. That must mean I'm a good person. Babies and dogs. They know good people." When you fell asleep, we went on my balcony and looked at the city below us.
I'll remember him like that. Knowing you, watching the world, floating above its struggles.
And he was a good person.
One day, when you're older, but not too much older than now, you will meet a friend who sees you. Who is drawn to your quirks and idiosyncrasies and more obvious flaws. And you'll be drawn to him, too. To his ability to question authority until authority buckles under the weight of his genius, to his infectious and uninhibited laughter, to his poetry, both the written kind and the kind that lives right under his skin, giving him a poet’s glow. And together, you'll run lines for plays and make inside jokes so glorious and so private that anyone who hears you laughing feels the sting of not having that special spark the two of you have, and together, you'll dance in the rain, and he'll encourage it, remember it forever, years later asking you at least once a year, "Remember that time we danced in the rain?", and you'll get older. And you'll become teenagers and fall in love with other kids and he’ll tell you about the stars he and his love looked at together under in the Arb and how, at that moment, everything was perfect. And you'll ask him if staying up all night makes your breath smell bad and makes kissing gross and he'll say, "That's the best kind of kissing! Because it's real!" He’ll teach you it’s important to be real. And you'll grow older, and you'll move away. And you'll find each other a bit later, as kind of-grownups, who get depressed, who get sick, and for brief, beautiful moments you'll laugh your way out of it together. And you'll love each other the way you love family you choose.
And one day one of you will not grow any older. And when that happens, hold his memory close to you. Think of him every day. Call him to you - what he would say, what he would laugh at, how he would rage at the inequities surrounding you, how he'd smile lovingly at your tears over him. How he'd tell you not to worry. Hear his voice. Always listen to his voice. And pass on that voice, speak it for him.
I will pass on Jamie when I encourage you to dance in the rain. When I recall memories of it with a gleam in my eye. I will pass on Jamie when I sing you old Scottish and Irish folk songs as you fall to sleep. I will pass on Jamie when I tell you the stories of Shakespeare with a passion that comes from the gut, from the loins. I will pass on Jamie to you when I call someone in a position of authority a fascist or tell you that to protest you need to revolt. I will hear his voice, and though it may be altered slightly, like a game of telephone, I'll tell you what he says.
It won’t be enough, but it will be something.
Love,
Mommy"
(Brigit Young)