11/04/77

Dear Sarah,

Don’t worry about whether or not you can call me J. You can. Most of my friends do and you’re one of my friends. Besides, I like it better than my full name. Also, let me just go ahead and get this out of the way. Yes, Brandon really did that and didn’t catch anything for it. It actually wasn’t just him, but he was the brains in that operation. Well, not that anyone who would do that has any brains, but you know what I mean. He was gonna do a dog too but never could find one to his liking for it. Thank God for that.

You’re right by the way, Mary is my little sister. She’ll be twelve next week. Can’t believe how fast shes growing. She's the youngest of us, with me stuck in the middle and Matt being the oldest. He’d be 26 now, if he was still here. His number got called a few years back and he bought it somewhere over there. Mary doesn’t really remember him. It’s honestly probably for the best, I’d hate to see her sad over something that done happened. I miss him though. I really miss him being at home. It’s like everything changed after we knew he wouldn’t be coming back. Ma and pa say they don’t have favorites, but he was their favorite. They just want me to be him, but I can’t. No one could be him but him. I do try to be a good big brother for Mary since he can’t no more, but it ain’t easy. I talk to her about how its going, help her do her math homework , take her for ice cream, you know all that stuff. But I can’t do it right. I’m just awful at being her brother.

Sorry about that. Don’t ever feel bad for rambling and never apologize for it, we’re all guilty of it. Ramblings good, I think. Lets you say things you’d never say if you weren’t rambling. Unless you say something to the wrong person then it can get you whupped. But thats not the point, ramblings good for the soul. We should all do it more. Maybe we should make a promise to ramble to each other in these letters, just really let ourselves talk. That would be nice. I think we should, but if you don’t want to it’d be fine. No hard feelings either way.

You asked me about my family last time to give me something to write about, so I think I oughta return the favor. Tell me all about your classes. Well not like the nitty gritty book stuff, I'd never have a hope of understanding any of that. But tell about which ones your cat could pass and that classmate that's always snoring, stuff like that. I love that kinda stuff. Makes it all feel more normal and like I could maybe do it one day.

Talk to you soon, 

J