Dear "Heavan"

I’ve written a lot about how I’ve been journaling since I was 13. But it occurred to me when I was writing The Luck We Carry that writing has done a lot of heavy lifting in my life. When I was thinking about an essay from the book, “A Letter from the Future,” where I’d written myself a letter to give me some hope at a time I desperately needed it, a memory played in my head. It was right after I got the phone call that my grandmother had died, and I rushed to the desk in my bedroom and frantically wrote a letter to heaven, explaining what a wonderful woman she was and how much I loved her and all the reasons I did. It felt imperative—crucial—for me to write this letter as soon as I heard the news—as if it needed to get there before she did, and somehow make things easier for her.

It’s one of the first times I felt writing connected me to something bigger than myself. Not even to another person. To life. To existence. To love in its natural form, unattached but ubiquitous. It’s almost like something I would have posted on the internet—if such a thing existed in 1987—not so much to share with others as to just get it out of myself. I was 18. Shy. Awkward. And I'd just finished my freshman year of college, on the cusp of becoming whatever I was going to become.

I’d always been close to my maternal grandparents. While my peers spent to Spring Break in Fort Lauderdale or South Padre Island, I went to my grandparents’ house. It was my favorite place. It felt safe and insulated with all the things I loved: cans of Spaghetti-Os, Cap’n Crunch, and Red Baron pizza. I felt listened to there. Gram and I sat at the raised bar in their kitchen. We talked about all kinds of things from my favorite subjects in school (English, and more precisely, writing. Duh?) to my friends who she’d met more than once, to my dreams and what I wanted to be when I grew up.

“You don’t ever want to just blend in,” she told me once, her black eyes gleaming. “There is only one you.” She said it with pride. It felt good. There wasn’t anyone else in my life who championed my uniqueness. At least, no other adults.

I always carried that with me. I’m sure she didn’t know I was gay back then. I mean, I didn’t. But I was shy and soft-spoken. And her directive has always stuck with me. And as I got older—closer to becoming—it wasn’t a hard directive to follow. I think she knew I wasn’t the average teenage boy and maybe even sensed it was disappointing or frustrating for my parents. She was trying to bolster me. To discover me. And help me discover myself.

So when I hung up the phone with my dad, who was at the hospital with my mom and aunts, I was grateful I was home alone. I was grateful I had space to process, alone, the first death that rocked my foundation. I ran my arm across the kitchen table, knocking everything on the floor and scaring our black German Shepherd. Before I picked up the mess, I crawled over to Prince and hugged him, crying while he sat there, trying to absorb my hurt, I imagined. Then, as if I were being timed, I jumped up and ran to my bedroom. To the desk Gram had given me—which is one of the reasons I loved it so much. I pulled out an envelope and a notebook and scrawled my letter—her ticket through the pearly gates; I would make sure of it.

In the heat of the moment, I addressed the envelope “To Heavan.” It still bugs me today that I misspelled it, and that letter is long gone. From this world. And from my memory—at least the detailed contents of it.

When I went back to Purdue in the fall, I went to see a counselor to help me cope with the grief of losing Gram. As we talked in our sessions, I felt brave enough to show him the letter. He told me writing that letter was already a strong part of my coping strategy and encouraged me to continue journaling—which has never been a problem. My journals are fullest during challenging times. That has changed since 1987.

The throughline of writing in my life has never been clearer. It led to blogs, essays, and my first book. Though the misaddressed letter is long gone, you can read “A Letter from the Future” in The Luck We Carry.

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Ron Stempkowski is the author of The Luck We Carry: Love, Loss, and the Stories That Shape Us, a memoir-in-essays about learning to move with grief instead of moving on. If this story resonated, you can grab a signed copy—complete with a handwritten note—at ronstempkowski.com, or get your copy wherever books are sold. And if you'd like more stories like this one, join the journey and get them straight in your inbox.