I know we cannot control the circumstances of life. We take the hand that we are dealt and we do the best that we can. You played your hand with fierceness...You repeatedly put on your armor and you fought an incredible fight for so many years. Within you was a strength that never ceased to amaze those around you. I saw you go through more near death moments than I can begin to count...I remember you smiling and waving at an empty hallway, and when I asked, "who are you waving at?" You told me it was a young boy and a young man in uniform waving at you...I watched as you squinted and saw your smile fade to confusion as you jerked back and said, "it's me." I rubbed your arm as you continued to gaze in to that hallway.

Hospice had told me so many times that everything signaled that it was your time and to keep talking you over and that I was doing great...I really wasn't. All the signs were there but so was your incredible fight. After the fourth day I told them that God and you clearly had other plans. Sure enough you rallied. They told me that they had seen people do that but not as many times as you. You had such a will to get in as many sunrises as you could.

Six months later no one could imagine how much things would change. Rehab facilities and basically everything shut down tight as this beast called Covid invaded our world. We would do duo chats they would set up and I could see each day how lockdown was wearing on you. We were four miles apart. Four miles. With each call there was decline and eventually you stopped talking for over two weeks. I prayed what came so swiftly would leave the same way and that things would open back up and you would rally like you always had...that's just what you did. The last chat call I received to my surprise you were smiling and said, "there's my beautiful wife." I was stunned. Grateful and stunned.

Early the next morning I was up preparing for a zoom meeting when I got the call...nothing prepares us for that call even when you have been told for years that it's just a matter of time. With that call comes finality. The words play over in your head as you try to comprehend what you are hearing. I am so sorry that I was not there to talk to you, to kiss your forehead, to rub your arm, and to tell you that it was ok to go and that I would see you again. I am so sorry that even though caring people were with you - that I wasn't there. I am so sorry from the bottom of my heart.

I remember later that day telling our favorite hospice nurse when she called that you had been smiling and talking. Through her tears she said, "he rallied one more time." It has been almost two years and I know we are not the keepers of time and that no one knows when or under what circumstances that our loved ones or one's self will draw that last precious breath...please know I am so sorry I wasn't there.

It has been years my brother, my twin, and every waking day I regret picking up that rock. Despite the many years, I still remember the details of what happened. You tricked me, I did not know that father distasted vegetables, and that he loved a good piece of mutton. I was the gardener, and you were the shephard. However, I feel I was wrong to blame you. You had no idea that father would freak over my lowly vegetable soup. While you laughed at the beginning,with your finely seasoned mutton, I now remember that it stopped the instant he poured the pot of soup, still hot, all over the top of my head. It was so hot that it left a mark that I, and everyone else, can still see to this day.

The soup ruined my best shirt, the shirt made from the skin of a certain snake that mom skinned. She made our shirts and a nice rope from that hide. I killed you the same way that mom killed the snake. Rock to the head. Except, she did it after sneaking up from behind and I did it in a moment of angry. A terrible moment She taught me how to do it, that was something that made her feel all the more worse. I was already kicked out by the time of your funeral, but I could still hear mom's cries valleys away. Those cries still haunt my dreams to this day. Mother passed away shortly afterwards. However, I only found that out after Seth found me in the mountain woods near the asgardian halls. He had been looking for years, at least 13. All those years, I was being searched for, unaware of my searcher's exsistence.

He told me what he knew, which was only a little since occurred when he was an infent. He was only three or four months old, he was not sure which, when she hung herself from the tree with the rope. Uriel found her the next morning when she was doing her rounds. She had no idea how mom was able to slip past her, and she regrets this lapse because she might have been able to stop her. Two days later, mom was buried under the tree. Years later, when father died, he was burned and the ashes were strown across his sea. Father had already been died for many years before Seth went searching for me.

That knowledge was the main reason he wanted to find me, to let me know happend, but he also wanted to know about you. He wanted to know what you were like, and I told him. I told him everything, I had the time, he was with me for four years.

I told him about the times when we jumped from tree to tree in that wet jungle that father could not name. We called it greeny cliffs. I told him of when we raced against Faunus in his fields, Faunus on hoof while we were on horse. I told him about how we got stung by bees when we were looking for honeycomb. And yes, I told him about that fateful day. After that, he shortly left. I attended his funeral years later.

I am sorry brother, I wish I was the one who died that day instead. Everyday I think about it.

-Cain

I'm sorry I believed him when he said you were selfish,

and it wasn't that I believed his words,

but the deeper threat behind them sank in, didn't it?

You told yourself, so what if I am a bit selfish?

but that wasn't what you felt when he said it and you knew it too

even if you pretended not to

(I knew it too, even if I pretended not to)

And I'm sorry, so sorry, that I believed for so long

that you didn't care

and would hurt others for your own benefit;

never noticing the way you

kept silent

when it mattered

The idea of causing someone else pain

scared you so much

and I never knew

(even though I was always you)

I’m sorry for hurting you. I was wrong and self-centered and scared, honestly. I was afraid of you getting too close. I was afraid of showing myself to you and as you got closer, I instinctively pushed you away. I, at the time, felt that a part of me was too dark and scary to reveal to anyone else and I pushed it down, deep inside myself. I couldn’t come to know you while I was trying to amputate a part of myself.

I hope he loves you in the way that I couldn’t.

Dear beautiful self of mine,

I'm sorry about the life you have right now! Or I'm sorry for how this life turned out. I know you used to have friends and a bond that was amazing but through the years it broke and I don't know if something was wrong with me or them.

Now I have zero people in my life, except real few people that are miles away. Honestly I don't know anymore how you do it but you are strong and smiling.

I'm sorry for how your life turned out not only with friendships but with relationships too but that is life.

Thing is, people will always come and go but it's up to you if you are going to let them in or not! I'm only sorry for the chances I gave to people who did not appreciate my love, my caring for the them and the things that I gave.

I am sorry that you had to go through depression because of bullying or how you were treated. I am sorry to myself for letting it fall so quick while I could keep you strong enough to get through every single shit but I failed. I am sorry to myself for being how she is today, a lonely character who gives and never takes, someone who stays for others but they leave when you need them.

I hope one day you find the happiness you deserve.

"I love you so.. but please let me go"

I couldn’t seem to let her go.

She was draining life from me with every word she spoke

just like the tubes attached to her body were draining her life away from those eyes I fell for.

I watched her struggle just to drag a breath in from the air around her,

I couldn’t stop my eyes from spilling rivers.

My heart aches

Her heart aches

Then my heart stops when I hear the beeping stop on her heart monitor.

my love,

my life,

her last words a request for me

to just let her leave peacefully.

now my favorite words,

The last words I heard from her beautiful voice.

To the one I wronged, you know who you are.

I have only recently had the nerve to read the last message you sent to me three months ago. When I finally read it I became physically sick to my stomach. The year since I saw you last has been nothing but a long dark tunnel for me. An escape route from my past life to a purgatory where I comfort myself with lies about what really happened. I cannot imagine what this year has been like for you. What I put you through was unforgivable. Looking back at my past I am horrified. I am not the man I want to be. I don't even think I qualify as a man, or if I ever did. Every day of my life so far has been nothing but a carefully constructed lie. So much time was dedicated to being someone I did not know. Someone I did not want anyone to know. The mask I adorned became so tightly glued to my skin that I forgot how to be myself. It's basic human instinct to pursue the desire to be accepted and wanted. I did not understand that this shouldn't boil down to trading in all aspects of your own dreams and humanity for the sake of normalcy. I took so much pride in the fact that no one saw through me. That no one knew me. That somehow this was the ultimate achievement. Ignoring the fact that I was so desperate for everyone else's approval that I worked at my menial job for fifteen years and convinced myself I wanted nothing more. That with the money I saved I could retire early and do what I really wanted. Whatever that was. I told myself I was happy in my marriage. That love was convenient and didn't mean anything other than sharing the same house and bed. I wore the ring like a badge of honor, like I had achieved yet another milestone in my life. My daily existence was akin to putting on a suit of human skin and playing out a role on tv. Except there was never a moment I could take it off, aside from my dreams. All I did at one point was dream while I slept-walked through life. I thought I was clever by deceiving everyone, but I was a monster. And I blamed everyone that I hurt. I hurt everyone who came too close. If I couldn't be human, couldn't be my true self, no one else could be treated like a human either. I belittled, objectified, and dehumanized people. I did this to you of all people. The only person who wanted to know me. I mistook your kindness for weakness and exploited it for my own gain. Now I am haunted by the idea that I extinguished your capacity to care and rendered you unable to love again. I don't know how to atone for all this. I only write to let you know that I finally acknowledge the pain I caused and I am sorry. I know it was my fault that I was fired for my actions. It was my own fault that my wife divorced me. I will be sorry and filled with regret until the day I die. My only hope is that somehow you escape from the hell I put you in. Perhaps this letter will make a difference somehow.

-R

For the audacity to think I could be anything more than the hand that fate dealt me.

I apologize to the little children, born--or yet to be born, who I professed to one day cure of their various maladies.

I apologize to the mother's who may never hear their child utter an intelligible word. Or who are worn out from decades of caring for a child who may never function at an adult level.

It was you I was thinking of. When I set out on my foolish life's mission. But I needed this too.

Sadly, I presumed too much; thinking that I would one day bare the credentials to make that dream a reality.

I boasted of techniques, research, and technologies which could only exist in a world where life comes before profit.

I bragged of beating the system. So that the needy would no longer have to pull a John-Q to have their child cured by a physician's hand.

I was half out of my mind to believe I could change the world.

And for that, I apologize.