#letter five

Secret Santa Posts

Surprise! Here’s another post from your secret santa @akb723!

23rd December 1957

Sassenach,

You look beautiful tonight, laying across my lap, the fire glow warm against your skin, and our three children cuddled up next to or on you asleep. The four of you are so peaceful and perfect, I never want to move (despite the fact that my leg has fallen asleep.)

Willie did not last long once I started reading How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and his small snores make me smile like a fool. I am surprised with how quickly Faith and Bree fell asleep. Was it my voice? Or just the comfort of love and safety that lulled them to a peaceful slumber cuddled against you? You should see their faces, in sleep I can see you in them as the eleven year old girl I first had a sleepover with in the broch. I remember your wild, curly hair tangled up on the pillow and across your face. You were beautiful to me then, although I did not know how to tell you.

As you slept I told you stories, and you later said you had nightmares of faeries stealing you away the entire time and you never wished to sleep in the rusty old broch again. I am afraid that was my fault. I told you the stories because, at the time, I thought you were a faerie come to steal me away. I know now that you were simply sent to me from God instead. He gave me my soulmate early in life, so that I could grow to love and cherish her in every stage of life. I could learn how to please you and how to live with you. I have never once gotten bored being married, engaged, dating, or while friends with you.

Did you know the next time you slept over?

I was eleven, as were you. It was just before your twelfth birthday. You and Jenny were playing a game while Ian, Willie, and I grumbled that we wanted the table. Both of you turned and gave us a look, you still give me the same look when you are annoyed with me. You said ‘You told me just the past December that you were going to marry me, and I said in return you had to listen to what I said.’ I remember nodding dumbly at you and you smiled deviously. ‘Well then, I want the table to play games with Jenny. You three can either join us, or get out!’

I can look back at that and laugh. You had me so wrapped around your finger even then. That night do you remember drinking tea on the dooryard steps? I brought you a blanket and you pulled me to your side. I asked you to marry me again and you laughed and said, ‘we’re too young Jamie. Ask me again in eight years, then we’ll be old enough.’

Eight years, two months and nine days later, I asked you to marry me under the mistletoe by the tree we picked out. You smiled and launched yourself into my arms screaming yes! You made me feel like I was on top of the world. Just as you make me feel that way now.

Your trust in me has only grown over the years and now as you lay in my lap asleep cradling our son to your breast, and our daughter against your sides, I’m reminded how much I love this life I have been given.

You are perfect to me.

Your Enamored Husband,

Jamie

Jamie set his pen and paper down, and rolled his neck loosening the tension that was there. Claire still slept peacefully on his lap. Smiling down at his family Jamie began to play with Claire’s hair just to watch her smile in her sleep. She had told him that he did that in his sleep, and all of the children did as well, getting that trait from him. He didn’t believe her, insisting that they got it from her.

Faith stirred and blinked blearily at him. “Da?”

Jamie whispered back, “Yes mo nighean donn?”

“I love you. Will you read the Twas Night Before Christmas tomorrow? I like it when you read.”

“Of course I will, mo chridhe. Do ye want to go up to your bed to sleep?”

She shook her head and cuddled up more on her mother, laying her head so that the top touched Jamie’s thigh. “No, I want to stay with you and Mamma.”

Jamie reached out and stroked a second set of dark curls tenderly. “As you wish. Go back to sleep then, we’re no going anywhere.”

It is currently one in the morning here and I am thinking about the dream I had the night prior, if we want to be technical. It wasn’t anything big, really, but it is the first time that you have made an appearance. Usually when I dream about famous people, they’re actually there and I’m almost positive that I saw your brother in my dream (which was strange) but when it came to you, all I got was a computer screen.

I am very greedy when it comes to you and I realize that. I’m not completely aware if it comes off as creepy or even if my letters to you come off as creepy but since you’ll never actually read them, I’m not too worried to be honest. But, anyway, I am greedy and I want to know you, to be able to touch you and say yes, he’s my best friend but I can’t and that fact became so real in my dream. All you are and all you will ever be to me is a guy on my computer.

I can’t go to any conventions and I don’t live in LA so I can’t just run into you on the street. I don’t know how to be your friend because you’re so unattainable and it sucks. I think it’s safe to say my crush on you may be dwindling since I haven’t been watching your videos as much as I used too. I don’t interpret my own dreams too much because of how strange they are but it happened on here; I made some kind of post that you finally saw and responded to. If I remember accurately, you thanked me for loving you (I have no idea where love came from. My mind is escalating emotions faster than I am, lol). Maybe it’s just time for me to let you go? Our paths are not destined to cross and I’ve accepted that.

Hey kids.

How are my babies today, huh? (sorry, just had to say it)

Hope you guys are alright, not getting into trouble and doing well in school. I don’t have any wisdom to impart on you today, but…

when you read this, ask me what happened on January 26, 2015 in my 6th period English Class concerning a skit. Trust me, you’ll want to know. It was probably the funniest, worst thing I have ever been a part of and I cannot tell you how bad it’s going to be.

Church pews look too much like the benches in the fiction section of my favorite bookstore. Maybe this is why I always check the box labeled Agnostic rather than Catholic. Maybe this is why I stopped going to church.

If I had a God, I’d ask him to teach me how to believe in things like you. But I don’t feel the need to get down on two knees just to say thank you because God doesn’t listen if we’re on equal ground. And I don’t ask for anyone to forgive my sins but me because, well, I’ve been struggling with that enough.

I’m sorry, Momma, but life lessons don’t come in pocket sized books handed out on street corners.

Life lessons come in the morning after you’ve slept with the wrong person and conversations that start and can’t be stopped no matter how many times you try to inhale the words back into your lungs. Life lessons come in learning how to hold someone’s hand in silence. Life lessons come in someone saying all the wrong things.

Now, I know God can’t say the wrong thing but he sure as hell can’t say the right thing either. 

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe God’s tongue has been cut out and that’s why he doesn’t speak to me when I plead the same way a candle burns. Slowly at first, and then all at once. Maybe God is a deaf man. 

But what if he’s not? What if you pray every day to the sky hoping someone is listening to you and there is no one there? What if your words float into space and echo for billions of years becoming every star’s lullaby? What if the rings on Saturn are made out of prayers whispered in hospital waiting rooms and in front of kitchen sinks filled with dirty dishes that have collected from hands that are trembling too much to hold things?

See, I can’t take the chance on that. I’ve already taken too many chances on men that don’t answer. 

I can live with going to hell if it means I’m digging my own six-foot grave. 

Mother, I don’t believe in God but sometimes, I still pray when I’m scared. I don’t believe in God but sometimes, I see angels. I’ve tried to count all the right ways to tell you this. I keep ending up with closed fists rather than raised fingers.

There is no right way.