Despite our differences, we also have a lot in common. After all, we are related. I just want to get some things out. Things that I was not able to speak about but now I think I’m ready to let it out. Well, for starters, you know the place we grew up in does not have any fault in what happened with me. Yes, Harlem is a place where rape happens, drugs, standing in the corner, shootings by the project but doesn’t that happen in other places too?
You also know Harlem is a place where a lot of us come together for our holidays, our spirit, our music, our good people. Harlem is looked down at just the way you look down at it. You once said I never turned evil or disrespectful the way “kids can do, so quick, so quick in dance” and yes, perhaps that is right; I was never evil or disrespectful but you are a fool. You are as bad as the white folks that look down at our types of people and Harlem. Brother I know I messed up, but I am human we make mistakes.
I suffered knowing I was in jail and my brother never reached out to me. I know your probably saying, ‘Sonny you didn’t reach out to me either’ but in all honesty when I finally received your letter, I felt at peace. What I said in my letter to your response was true, I remember saying “you don’t know how much I needed to hear from you. I wanted to write you many times but I dug how much I must have hurt you so I didn’t. ” That was wrong of me, and it was wrong of you too not to write to me or look for me.
You said “The seven year difference in our aes lay between us like a chasm; I wondered if these years would ever operate between us” What does that even mean? We are family, age has nothing to do with it. Remember mom told you to watch over me, to guide me right before she told you about our uncle but yet you went a year without speaking to me. I guess what I am trying to say is, put your guard down brother. You have built a wall so high no one can break it down, you have fought against everything I believe in.
So what if I want to be a musician? You are a teacher, we all like different things. As a brother, as the person mama said would watch over me, you should have supported me. I appreciate your advice and your perspective on things. We didn’t handle it very well. Our relationship was constant fighting and pushing each other away. I need to learn from my experiences and I have. I told you, I remember telling you that I was afraid of something or I was trying to escape from something and you know I have never been very strong.
Although I may not be very strong or smart in the head I couldn’t allow myself to become what everyone thinks Harlem is about. I was able to become more than just a man waiting for his next step. I know you never supported my music before but don’t you see its my passion, what I use as a coping skill rather than using drugs again. Music allows me to win, I won because I was able to fall down, learn from my mistakes and get myself back up. I forgave you and I forgave myself because we all fall down sometimes. I hope you’ve forgiven me.
I forgive you for being scared, for not knowing how to build a relationship with me and not knowing how to deal with the situation. I was scared too thats why I had to stand up by myself and find my own way out of my own darkness. Now you are back in my life and that is all that matters. I don’t want to lose you again. It was hard dealing with things alone, loneliness can kill. Lets fix our relationship, enough with the suffering, enough with the broken family relationships. Blood is thicker than water. What I am about to say I want you to take in, to believe it because its true.
