I truly believe that the greatest gift that you can give to another person is to genuinely let them know that who they are and what they do matters. It has been my goal in 2014 to become a more thoughtful person. A string of deaths to some individuals who positively affected my life led me to conceive this series. As the words to my favorite song go, “And for those who have stood by my side, you are the story I tell.” You are the words and pages to my story.
Over the course of the next several months, I will be writing open letters to those who have positively impacted my story. I’m not going to lie. It is my goal to make you cry, not out of grief or pain but out of the realization that you do truly matter. I am not doing this in order of how important you are to me. For the most part (other than birthdays or other important events), the letters will be done in a random order. I hope you enjoy, and I hope you come away from this with the realization that you are extremely important to me.
Dear Jessica,
I often struggle with looking at my life and only viewing the tough breaks. I look at things that should have gone my way but didn’t, for one reason or another. I don’t spend enough time thinking about the blessings that I have in spite of myself. You, quite honestly, are one of those blessings.
When I think about how things started with us, even with me being the optimist that I am, I could never have expected us to be what we are nearly 12 years later. In a group of 800 kids, you stood out. You were the needle in the haystack. I saw you (and those gray sweatpants with “Angel” on them), and it was like nobody else was in the room. Unfortunately, I was pretty much THE shiest and most awkward kid on the planet, so instead of introducing myself to you like a normal person would, I got all weird.
I don’t know if you remember this or if I’ve ever told you this story, but the second night of camp during the year we first met, I saw you before service. I wanted to get your attention, and my bright idea was to gently nudge you as I walked past so you’d turn around and I’d turn around and our eyes would meet. However, I overestimated how much space I actually had to pull this off (and forgot how awkward I was), and accidentally wound up knocking you over. I felt like such an idiot!
You had no reason to treat me as well as you did. You were much better looking than me and certainly were a whole lot cooler than I was! You could have put me in my place, and I would have deserved it. At the least, you didn’t have to give me the time of day. Yet you treated me well. You gave my friend your number to give to me because I didn’t have the guts to ask for it myself. You humored me on AIM and the occasional phone conversation. You made me feel good about myself.
You know as well as anyone that I had the biggest crush in the world on you in high school. Back then, I don’t think you had the smallest inkling of interest in me that way, but you were careful with my feelings. Even when I would get frustrated about things and would say things that I had no right saying, you still had patience with me.
As the years went on and distance separated us both geographically and in the amount of time that had gone by since we last saw each other, a funny thing happened. My confidence somehow grew, and with that, our friendship grew as well. We talk more now than we talked twelve years ago. I know that you genuinely have an interest in my life and how things are going and that you’re proud of me when I succeed. I enjoy trash talking about sports even though you’re a Bears fan (ewww!).
I cannot begin to tell you how proud I am of the woman you have become. Plenty people have children young and use it as an excuse to not move forward with their lives. They make a bunch of excuses for why they aren’t where they want to be. You, my dear, are not one of those people. You have come so far and worked so hard. You are a great mother, a great nurse, and most importantly, a great person. You are someone I am so proud of knowing.
My high school dreams never came true. We never wound up together. But what we have today is far greater than what my teenage self ever could have imagined. I cannot wait for the next time we see one another. Ten years is far too long. Thank you for being who you are, and thank you for giving a dorky awkward kid a chance.
Love always,
Jakob
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