My Birthday Letter

one of the last things I have from you

Alina,

Today you are eighteen.

If you are reading this, then I am still not there. I do not like that pattern repeating, but I cannot avoid it.

I do not know where you are reading this from. I tried not to imagine it too specifically, because I do not want to replace reality with guesses. But I did think about you anyway. That part was unavoidable.

I am writing this before I would have been able to say it out loud without making it sound wrong.

You always said I do that. You were correct.

I have been trying to imagine what you would say to me if I were here.

You would probably tell me I am overthinking this letter. You would be right.

You would tell me I am being too careful with my words.

You would be right about that too.

But I cannot afford to be careless with you, even now.

I am not there to see you at eighteen.

I want you to know I have thought about that number more than I care to admit.

It used to mean something simple. Now it feels like something I was supposed to stand beside you for.

I am sorry I cannot.

I do not know what version of you exists at this moment. That is the part that unsettles me most. I do not know who you have become by now.

But I know this will still be true:

You were the first place I understood peace was not emptiness.

It was presence.

You taught me that without ever trying to teach me anything.

That is still true.

I wondered if you are smiling more now. I wondered if your laugh sounds the same. I wondered if you still tilt your head slightly when you are trying to decide whether to trust someone.

I hope you still do.

It was never something I wanted you to lose.

I also wondered if you were okay.

Not in the vague way people ask questions they do not want answers to.

I mean in a specific way.

Are you eating properly? Are you sleeping? Are you still overworking yourself when you think no one notices?

I notice. I always noticed.

Even when I did not say it.

I do think about whether you are managing without me.

That is a selfish thought. I know that.

But it is also honest.

You were always stronger than you allowed yourself to look. I saw that early. I just did not always say it well.

You do not need to survive because I am gone.

You were already surviving before I ever understood how to stay close to someone properly.

But I hope you are not only surviving now.

I hope you are living in ways that do not feel like you are being punished for continuing.

If you are not okay, I do not want you to think that means anything about you has failed.

It does not.

It only means you are still here, carrying things that were never meant to be light.

You were always stronger than your own understanding of yourself.

That never changed.

I do not know what version of you exists at eighteen. I do not get to see it. That is something I am trying not to turn into anger, because it would not help you.

Instead I am trying to think of it as distance, not loss.

You are not gone from me.

You are just continuing forward in a place I cannot follow.

I worry sometimes that people will try to turn me into a moment for you. Something frozen. Something you are expected to carry.

Do not let that happen.

If I stay anywhere, I do not want it to be as weight.

I want it to be something steady you can set down when you need to breathe.

There is something I want you to remember about us, if memory becomes complicated.

I did not love you because you needed saving.

I loved you because you were real in a way I had never learned how to ignore.

You did not ask me to become anything other than what I already was. You just stayed close enough that I eventually stopped pretending I did not need anyone.

That is what you did.

Even if you never meant to do it.

I need you to understand this, and I do not want you to misread it as sadness or absence alone.

What we had was not cut short in the way people try to describe endings like this.

It was lived.

Completely.

In the time we had, I was not waiting for anything else. I was not postponing life. I was not half present.

I was there.

With you.

That matters.

I hope you are still letting people care about you.

I hope you are not trying to carry everything alone just because you learned how early you had to do that.

You were always allowed to be held. You just did not believe it at first.

I think I would like you to believe it now, sweetheart.

I hope you are laughing sometimes.

Not because everything is easy. I do not believe in that kind of outcome for you. But because you still find reasons to laugh anyway.

You always did that better than I did.

I hope you are not alone when you read this.

But if you are, I hope you do not interpret that as abandonment.

Some kinds of love are simply not able to stay physically present.

That does not make them less real.

If I could ask for anything from you on this day, it would not be strength.

You have always had enough of that.

It would be gentleness.

Not the kind you give other people.

The kind you allow yourself.

Even if only for a few minutes.

Even if only today.

If you are sad today, I wish I could remove it. I cannot. I do not like that limitation.

So I will do the only thing I can think of that is honest.

I will tell you what I would have done if I were there.

I would have shown up quietly, like I always did when I did not know how to announce myself properly.

I would have stood next to you instead of in front of you.

I would have listened to whatever you wanted to say, even if it was nothing at all.

And I would have stayed longer than I had words for.

That is still true, even if I am not there to do it.

I hope you can understand that difference.

I am proud of you in ways I do not have language for anymore.

That does not disappear with time.

It does not fade just because I am not there to say it aloud.

It remains accurate.

Happy birthday, Alina.

I do not know how to make that phrase large enough to hold everything I mean by it, so I will not try.

Just know it is not small.

You were never something I lost.

You are something I keep.

Even now.

Even here.

You made it to eighteen.

I always knew you would.

Even when I did not know what I would not be there for, I knew that part.

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Raphael

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P.S.

If you are missing me today, I want you to do something for me.

Do not try to push it away.

Do not try to solve it.

Just let it exist for a moment without turning it into something sharp.

Then eat something small. Something you like. Not because it fixes anything, but because your body still deserves kindness even when your heart does not feel cooperative.

You always forget that part, sweetheart.

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I wanted to write something and when everything gets too much, I read his letter again.

So I figured it made me happy and that it would make…

well it might not make you happy but it is the loveliest thing I own.

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