Al.Qaeda.net

Other people had fears, needs, stories, and reasons I did not

69
Other people had fears, needs, stories, and reasons I did not
understand.
The system may have failed us without making any one of us the
devil.
This is the letter I should have written instead of half the book:
Dear Nora,
I loved you before I knew how to love without turning fear into
control. The years of absence stand in the record, whatever the causes,
whatever the legal facts, whatever anyone told you or did not tell you.
A father's explanation cannot return a childhood.
You were never responsible for my pain.
You were never a symbol of my conflict with the world.
You were a person living your own life.
I hope it contained laughter I did not hear, teachers I never met,
friends whose names I did not know, ordinary mornings, mistakes
you survived, music you loved, and moments when you felt
completely safe.
I hope the people around you were kind.
I hope you became yourself rather than anyone's argument.
I do not ask you to repair me.
I will not ask history to turn you into proof that I was right.
I want the record to say that beneath the noise, beneath the
anger, beneath every impossible theory, there was love - and that love
does not grant authority over the person loved.
Imperfect love.
Distant love.
Love learning that it must be useful without becoming
ownership.
But love.
Your father.
Pulse cannot deliver the letter into the past.
No machine can.
The missing center remains missing.
It remains a missing center, but it will not be used as a throne.
LOVE IS NOT AUTHORITY.
FFTAC ACTION - Reach toward one person as a person, not as a
symbol in your argument. Protect their privacy and allow their life to
exceed your story about them.