If you were only dead

Hi dad,
Its been a long time. I know I can't really talk to you in person, there isn't even a grave I can visit. I wanted to catch you up on my life, it really has been a long time. The last time we talked was when you called to say goodbye, that you'd made a mistake - I try to think the mistake was getting yourself killed somehow, like maybe you took on a gang that was abusing kinds, or picked a fight with some Nazi bastards who came back for you later, I guess it doesn't matter. I know that what really killed you was the demon that took up residence inside your body, I don't know how long it really took to kill you, maybe it didn't; maybe you lived on, trapped inside your mind as it walked around, living your life, ruining your life. I like to think maybe one day you'll kick it out and come back to reality and even though you wont be able to go back to your life from before, maybe you'll at least get to live a new one.

I got married last summer, you'd probably like my new partner. They are super science based, never much for the kind of rough spirituality that mom was into. I wish I knew how you'd feel about the two of us being non-binary, I like to think that you would be pretty cool with it, it seems like you were never hung up on gender norms much. Some times when I think about my childhood I remember you buying me boys shoes and pants from the skate shop, giving me your shorts that I liked to much. Sometimes I wonder if you knew, even all those years before I knew it was even an option; before I even had words to describe myself. It's almost a comforting thought to imagine that twenty years before a psychiatrist ever thought to ask me who I was, you just knew. That seems like the kind of thing a really good parent would somehow know, just like a parent might know when their child is afraid or lying. I know mom kind of knew, she didn't have a good word for it but she knew on some level that I was never really connected to the feminine in the almost profound way that she was. Anyway, I'm married. My partner is like me, not really connected to the masculine that people so often expect. We live up north, in a little house on their parents land. We have a couple of dogs, sweet neurotic things full of love and curiosity. We will never have children, your grandchildren will have to come from my sister if she ever gets around to it, she wants to have them soon-ish I think but she doesn't want them until she finds the right partner. I used to think she would marry a woman and they would both get pregnant at the same time and have not quite twins but she hasn't dated a girl in a long time, I think the last one really broke her heart.

I work in a credit union. I like my work, I feel good about what I do, but I often feel more than a little unfulfilled, like I could be doing something more exciting with my life. I miss being the person people wanted to draw and make art about, someone told me that sometimes I'm so beautiful that he would see me and it would take his breath away, I still think about that. I wonder if I still take anyone's breath away, maybe my partners.I still want to be an actress, maybe someday you'll see me again in a movie...if you survived the demon, or maybe you'll see me from inside the demons body, still walking around pretending to be you. I know you wont see this letter, it's online and I'm sure that you are not.

I'm still consumed by grief sometimes, I wish we could have had a funeral for you and buried your body in the earth. I feel like the world stole you from me and then stole my right to grieve for you, stole the only closure losing you could have brought. I still feel like a child who's family was ruined and I never got to say goodbye, I can't even really say that you were good parent, I don't know when you ended and the demon began.

I love you, I miss you.
The most I can hope for is that when your body finally dies I will get the chance to finally, finally put you back in the earth and cry on your grave, the way I was never allowed to do when the demon took you.