Free The Last Time I Died by Joe Nelms

understand but am grateful exist. She’s a wonderful child from what I can tell through letters and pictures. I hope that you are still taking care of her like you always did. I’ll continue to believe you are until I hear different.
    There were almost three of you. I’m sure you didn’t know that. I planned to tell you later in life. But who knows what will happen and I don’t like the idea of going to the grave with stories that no one else on earth knows. Stories that someone else should know.
    When you were five and Ella was one, your mother became pregnant again. We didn’t mean to have another baby just then. While your mother and I had always hoped to have a large family, money was tight at the time and another child in the home would have been very hard on us. The decision was a tough one, but I stood by your mother, and to be honest with you, I agreed with it. There are no records and no one knew but your mother, myself, and the gynecologist who performed the D&C so the reporters never found out about it, thankfully.
    A year later, I had been promoted and we had made ourselves financially stable. But your mother was devastated by the abortion. I don’t think she ever recovered. We tried for another child after a while but could never become pregnant again. I always wondered how much of that was physical and how much was psychological.
    Your mother spiraled downward and away from us all slowly for years and by the time you were eight, I could no longer reach her. From there things escalated quickly and here we are.
    I tell you this because I want you to know that she wasn’t a bad person. She was a person who had bad things happen to her. As much as I tried to protect her, there are things that each of us must go through alone. I made my peace with our decision, but she could never get to the same place.
    I sometimes wonder how life would have turned out different had we chosen to have that baby. People have done harder things. My partner came from a family of ten. Irish, of course. They made it work. What would that have meant for you to have a brother or another sister? What would it have meant for Ella? What if having the baby made your mother happy and none of this ever happened? What if the opposite happened and things got worse sooner? What if, what if, what if? Looking back I think we could have done it. I just don’t know if that would have been a good or a bad thing. When you’re young and everyone depends on you, you worry about everything. Later you look back and realize how ridiculous it all is. So much stress for nothing. Perspective is so often wasted on those of us who can do nothing with it. My point is that we made a decision based on what we thought was best for us as a family at the time.
    This story might come as a shock or seem inappropriate, but as I have said, I don’t know what lies ahead and I want you to know these things that I know. More importantly, I hope these letters paint your mother in a more positive light in your mind. She deserves it.
    I love you every day.
    Dad

23
    (Oh, the audacity.)
    On a certain level, one can’t help but be impressed with the unabashed gall and gumption and ambition of our man as he enters the reception area of the good doctor he so recently abused. Consider the pluck of appearing without an appointment (or a shower, I might add) and expecting (demanding!) a receptive audience despite knowing very well that the schedule of a doctor of Arnold Rosen’s caliber is invariably full to capacity.
    Our man understands that a typical appointment is only fifty minutes, and therefore the remaining ten minutes of the hour, where we currently are, is patient free, theoretically leaving the doctor unencumbered. Our man has planned accordingly.
    Not surprisingly, the doctor has his own agenda for this private time and uninvited interruptions are frowned upon, but this is of no concern to our man as he strides purposefully toward the inner office door.
    The