ME: “Let me tell you about the future, the future doesn’t exist, stop trying to reach that place, because the regrets of your past will not allow you to even notice where you are getting to”
YOU: “But”
ME: “Let me talk, if you spend your life looking to that future, the regrets of the past will hunt you, will remind you everyday of how you failed to pursue the real stuff. You are worrying, stop. Worrying about that future that do not exist, will ruin you, will make you miserable, the white elephant in the room does not exist, stop pursuing that”
YOU”: but”
ME: “I told you already, let me talk, we don’t have much time, and I am trying to give you something important. I was fifteen when I begin my path to be rich, I begin working all the possible hours, when I met Stella, I knew I had to make a decision to pursue that future or a better one. I choose poorly, even that Stella kept on my side, I choose poorly. When John came, a year after I married Stella, I knew I had another chance to choose better, but again I choose poorly, when Mark, your father came, I had another chance, and you guess right, I choose poorly”
YOU”: but grandpa”
ME: “Let me finish. I was able to provide them a dreamed future full of money, they travel, they enjoy many things, while I worry about the future. In the process I waste any opportunity to connect with John and Mark. Do you know how many times I went to one of their important activities?”
YOU”: no”
ME: “Three times for John and four for Mark, for your uncle John I went to Baptize, Marriage and his funeral, for your father I also went to the hospital to meet you”
YOU: There was a long silence in the room, tears from two pair of eyes, and then he continue
ME: “I was always working, Stella told me many many times to really stop, and enjoy them, but I couldn’t, it wasn’t until many years later when Stella died that I noticed that I had lost everything that I finally stop and make the only good decision I had ever made, meet you and try to be what I was never able to”
YOU”: grandpa, you did well, you may have not done it for dad or uncle John, but you did it for me”
ME: “Mark, stop pursuing the future, pay attention, I pursue the future all my life, the only thing I obtain from that was that the regrets of the past have hunt me everyday and instead of paying attention to what it was saying, I was sure that the future was going to be better. Dear Mark, stop lying to yourself, the future may or may not be better, the past was or wasn’t better, people never take pictures of the crappy moments, people remember the good ones. Stella had boxes of pictures, full of good moments, full of smiles, full of incredible things, I only had the regret of the past, and a waste hope in the future.”
YOU”: but”
ME: “Don’t tell me but, stop living on that future, you will only had the regrets of the past, begin living in the present, begin living now, now is the only time you will have”
After he finished writing the letter, John’s nurse close the envelope, and addressed to Mark Jr. He knew that no one will be there for him in the way he was for no one, he was in the office when his son John died in the hospital with a heart broke, he was at work when his son Mark died in that car accident, he was busy in the office when Stella felt the stairs and break her neck, he was in the office every time Mark Jr. want it to see grandpa.
He knew that the nurse called Mark Jr., to his office, he said he will be in the hospital shortly, grandpa had been dying there for two days, and sadly he wasn’t surprise that Mark wasn’t able to get here, he would not had done it.
On Thursday, at four in the morning, John stopped breathing, alone in a bed. That afternoon Mark Jr. Assistant pick the letter.
It was a week after, when a Sunday afternoon Mark Jr. Working in his home office found John’s letter and open it.
He didn’t cry, he was use to live with the regrets of the past, so he stand up, pick the phone and when out. Three years later, he was playing in the backyard, with the present, not worrying about what the future will be, and without any regrets from the past, proud to get a message that Grandpa had leave him before he left.