Letters to Joshua

I often find myself wondering what Josh would think of our shared adoration of his doodles. How would he feel if he knew how studied they've become. Revered. His scratches, almost ALL in ink, that we all yearn to soak in. To press to skin, a tattoo stencil, to hold onto. Would he laugh? Be embarrassed? Think we were nuts? The answer is probably somewhere in between.

His notebooks are suddenly so much more valuable than they ever might have been in his eyes... And I guess there's meaning in that somewhere. We're not crazy enough to presume to find an "answer". But we fan through the empty pages at the back, hoping to see something we'd missed the first two times we combed through it. We peer closer to the page to see the ornate detail in the shell of Sir Turtle, the arch of an eyebrow on the visage of Julio Jorge Rico Suavez. He never appreciated his art. Relegating it almost exclusively to the sidebars of the Vietnam conflict. Crammed in the corner of a page detailing the nature of self-esteem. To read his words - HIS words - brings a sting and a weight. A guilt you can't pin down.

I recently "took" an empty notebook from his room at Dads. Graph paper. Never written in. Five Star brand. There were two of these there, on the floor by his dresser, ignored in a corner... but I left one there. Whether someone else might want it, or maybe for me to come back to and "claim" later.

It's strange. You walk out of that room feeling half grave-robber, half brother ("A little half brother comedy..." ha. That was a good joke of ours.) If you're not leaving with a Josh-scented shirt slung over your shoulder or an obscure, hodge podged Lego figure in your jeans pocket, you're still leaving his space with more knowledge of his world than he maybe would have ever wanted anyone to have. Part of me feels guilty every time. Every time. The rest of me doesn't know what else to do.

So, fuck it. I've got shirts, damn it.

And I have this notebook. Black cover. Untouched. Maybe never opened. But it was his. In his hands. Once. Maybe twice, at least.

I'll be writing letters to Joshua inside. Filling it with doodles. I envision, and hope, to fill every available shred of bare graph paper. With doodles, with words. Dreams. Memories.

In the back of the book, I've started recording one liners and specific memories he and I have shared. Sometimes boiled down to a few words. Others a paragraph. I don't ever want to forget a thing. Whenever I recall a moment I'd somehow forgotten, I hate myself for not respecting it enough to forget it to begin with.

I'll be writing my letters to Joshua. In HIS notebook. And I will send him your love.

Love you guys.