My uncle has written me letters. My Dad's brother. Twice in the last two weeks, which is more than he has ever communicated with me in my life, really, and it is astonishing how my heart abruptly begins to ache for a family that I have never really known. I write: J has enjoyed her first two weeks of university. I have trouble believing how quickly she has grown up.
I want to write, I think you would have liked me if you had known me. I think we would have been friends. I want to ask him if it's too late for that. It feels too late. I wonder why. He writes that he is learning the guitar tabs to Peace Train. Says he used to play a lot of Cat Stevens in the 70s but was too drunk and stoned in those days to retain any of it. For some reason I tear up when I read that.
I am writing stiffly, everything safe and distant, and I do not know how to cross the bridge to where he is coming from. I feel certain he will stop writing because this kind of stilted communication cannot possibly be satisfying; I cannot possibly fulfill whatever need he has recently developed that has made him want to reach out. And how badly I want his attention to continue is ridiculous. I am already mourning the day it will end.
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2 comments:
Do you think about asking him what's going on and trying to deepen that relationship?
I do think about it. Which doesn't mean I am brave enough to do it. But I think I know why he is thinking of me. He is reading my mother's book.
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