letter_not_sent lostgirl when you phoned the other day, you sounded so unlike yourself, so distant and foreign that i commented on it. you worried me. you rarely call. you said,"my aunt is going to die soon... today probably." i know you are estranged from your family because you have confided this to me for some unknown reason. we are not close, you and i. you don't let people in your world and god knows i don't either. but still, we have this strange connection, an odd friendship. we have meaningful conversations at times, out of singular necessity usually, each knowing our words are safely locked in a bullet proof box never to be opened to the outside world. then we go months upon months without talking at all. i have told you secrets because you don't judge; i like that about you. i asked you if you said goodbye to your aunt, and you told me she isn't really even your aunt. that she is a family friend from your childhood that was given the title "aunt" to keep things simple. you told me you had always loved her like a mother, and that she loved you for you, unlike your own. that made me feel sad. you told me you saw her last week and that you talked briefly but you couldn't stand to look at her failing body, the shell she had become, so you left, knowing full well you would never see her again. when you texted me yesterday morning that she had passed on the evening before, you remarked that she had gone to a better place. but you were troubled by my words...that you didn't say goodbye. you thought that you should have been stronger, and you knew there were things left unsaid. you wanted to tell her you loved her one last time. to thank her for what she was to you. you were asking my advice without asking. and so, i told you to write her a letter, to tell her everything you wanted her to know. sometimes writing a real pen on paper letter to someone cleanses the soul. it reaches the heart of the intended recipient in a way the spoken word cannot.(i did it myself a few months ago, a few times in fact, in the attempt to right a dreadful wrong...i think it might've worked.) you told me today that you did it. that you wrote and wrote, a ten page letter. you poured your heart into it, told the truth, and you said you cried real tears for her life and her love. and then you burned the letter not sent in the candle flame as you said goodbye. and you thanked me for being your friend. 100702 what's it to you? who go blather from