time to just let it go

so, i was trying to come up with a topic for november's issue of MANIFEST when god pointed me into a very firm direction. i had to face the man who murdered my cousin 20 years ago. now he's going to be in prison until he dies, so i wrote him a letter and that letter is the november issue. no politics, no inspiring articles, just me and my fear and my pain. i've been afraid of this man for so long, because he did something to me that no one was able to do before or since, make feel unsafe. being an army brat i've been surrounded by the military all my life and was never afraid of anything. after dec. 12th 1989, i've been terrified of every choice i've made, every action i've ever taken, because this man walked into the police department and just killed my cousin sonny. sonny was a cop and suppose to be bullet proof, (i was 13 at the time, so gimmie a break) not to mention he was inside the belly of the p.d. surrounded by cops with guns, he should have been safer than the pope! but he wasn't and nothing has felt safe since. this guy just walks in and just shot him and no one has ever been able to tell me why. they want to blame his childhood or mental sickness or the neighborhood he grew up in, i mean it's all bullshit and i'm tired of asking everyone else, so i finally just asked him. it's taken me 20 years but i finally grew a pair and wrote him.
i said in the letter that i wasn't scared of his answer, but now that i've actually sealed that envelop, i'm actually nervous. i'll drop the letter off in the mail box on my way to work tomorrow and it should reach him by the beginning of next week. i don't know if he will respond at all, hell he may be so drugged up he can't respond, but i know that when i first started writing this letter i cried every sentence. tonight i was reading through it again, correcting some typos and i only cried once. i think i'm finally truly embracing myself forgiving him for his actions. forgiving him for killing sonny and destroying our families, his included, is the only way i break the shadows that surround christmas for me. the only way i take back the safety and joy he stole from me.