I didn’t care. Really, and truly, if you had asked if I cared, I might have said “Do what you want; I’m not your Boy Scout leader. I don’t care”. And maybe, maybe you would have gently pulled my face up to yours and read the lie that was plainly written all over my face. And maybe you would have been able to see the heart wrenching pain in my eyes; bursting with tears that refused to be shed. And maybe you would have said “Butterfly, don’t cry I will always be there. I promise.” And lift me up so I could kiss you, because, of course, I can’t reach all the way up those basketball legs. The kiss would be brief and sweet, your way of reassuring me that all would be right in the world. You’ll see.

Of course, you didn’t do any of those things before you went off to “serve your country” and “be a man” and give everyone “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” But what about my happiness? What about that? Didn’t that matter to you at all? But I suppose that I should try to be fair. You did write a note to me. It has a lot of letters from the alphabet that piece together a message about why you did this. But I don’t care about that part- I care about the part that reads “I love you; you are my angel from heaven above.”

And the part about this that makes me want to hide from my grief and pain, is how I’ll never get to say it back to you.