Dear Tom,
Once again, I find that I can't stop myself. I can't stop thinking about you in every single thing that I do.
I go through these fits every now and again. Usually, I can get through okay, without losing myself completely to the though of you, but other times, I just feel like I'm going crazy. You never leave. I see you in everything, I wonder what you would say and do in situations, and I just imagine that you're still here with me.
Why was it you that died and not me instead? Mom said we were both real sick at the time, but I recovered from it with no lingering side-effects, but you definitely didn't have the same luck. Why is that? Why am I supposed to go through my life knowing that I had someone closer to me than anyone else ever will be, but that he died long ago? That's not fair to either of us, and I think a lot of people can admit that. Life's sure an experience, Tom, and it kills me to think that you never really got to have it. I mean, how much of it can you really cram into a three-year old before you ship him off to another life? There's so much awesome stuff here that you never got to do with me, and I've gone through life trying to live enough for the both of us. Even so, the girls I date, the friends I have, the adventures I go on, the family I'll someday create, just all the things I do, as hard as I try to do everything for the both of us, it will never be enough like it would be if you were actually still down here with me on Earth, doing all these amazing things for yourself.
There's a war going on in the world right now. Lots of countries from around the globe are fighting each other somethin' silly, and it's shown no signs of stop. It's happened before, before you and I were even born. The biggest countries start taking offense to things other countries are doing, and every world super-power picks a side, and then they all fight each other about who they think is right. I feel like I should explain that to you, since I don't think a three-year old would understand the concept of war, and I don't know if Heaven lets you age through life and get all the understanding you would if I'd been able to keep you here with me.
The hard part of this, for me right now, is that our home country is the proposed bad-guy in all of this, for the second world war in a row (well, there have only been two so far, but that's not to say there won't be more in the future; this planet is full of crazies doing all sorts of unpredictable stuff). The man on the radio says that our home country of Germany has been lost to a man called Hitler and his army of really bad guys. There are drafts going on all the time, and, as you probably know by now, if you remember our birthday, I recently turned eighteen, which means that I'm eligible to fight for America now. I'm just so scared that I'll get drafted into this whole thing. I don't want to go fight, and I especially don't want to die. I'm living for the both of us, and I don't want that plan of mine to get cut short before we can experience what adult life has to offer. I don't want to risk losing my life. I don't hate the country, I just hate the thought of dying. It's not even my war to fight. I always kind of wondered why the world leaders don't fight. If they're the angry ones, the ones who are commanding these wars, then why would I be the one with the gun in my hand? Just because they're angry at another country for something that isn't even our business, I have to put on that helmet and go across the ocean and fight for something that I don't even fully understand? It always seemed kind of silly to me, but maybe I'm just one of those folks looking for peace in a time where there is none.
Nowadays, though, all of my old friends look at me weird, just because, when I was little, I thought it was really cool to tell them that I was from Germany. Back then, I thought it made me special to have come from someplace other than this silly little town. The kids in school wholeheartedly agreed, and I remember in Kindergarten, everyone wanted to be friends with me because I talked different than all of them. Some of their folks, who can remember the first war America was in against Germany, the other world war that I told you about, looked at me funny, since they could recall whatever it was that Germany had done to tick American off, but that wasn't at all like it is now. Not a lot of folks want to be around me anymore. They look at me and they whisper, but not a lot of 'em want to actually be around me no more. I'm someone they've known all their lives, someone that they grew up with and that they've always known was completely harmless, and just because I was born in Germany, one of the major villains in this war going on, they want nothing to do with me.
I've heard whispers accusing me of being a Nazi, one of the guys in Hitler's army, just because people are so judgmental. I was three when we left Germany, so I was far too little to even know what hate and war was, so why would I be one? Besides, I heard something crazy about the Nazis not liking Jewish people, and wanting everyone to have blond hair and blue eyes. Well, one of my former friends was Jewish and we got on great, and I might have the blond hair, but my eyes are brown, so I would definitely say that, if that's what Nazis stand for, then I am definitely not one. I'm sure that can't be the whole reason this whole war is getting fought, but I guess I might just be too young to fully understand why everyone in the world hates each other all of a sudden.
It gets a little bit lonely sometimes, with all these crazy, ridiculous stories flying around school about me lately. Every single day presents me with a new opportunity to meet a new person and make a new friend out of that stranger, and I used to be so proud of telling 'em where I come from, because it didn't used to be such a problem, but now I just pretend to have been born here. It's been so long since I brought someone home with me to just hang out. Mom's lost most of her accent in the last fifteen years that we've been here, and she sounds almost like a natural American woman would. I'm just so worried that someone will notice that something's not exactly right with the way she says her words, or the foods she makes sometimes, or the slang she uses, or her tendency to get fed up with something and curse it in her native language, and I'll lose another person to senseless prejudice.
I could really use you right now, Tom. At least I know that you'd never snivel at me or make really rude comments about me as a person because of where we're from. Not just because you're from there, too, but I imagine that, had you not died when we were real little, you and I would have been the very best of friends. You'd be stuck with me, and I'd be in the same situation, and we'd be so similar that it would be weird if we didn't get along like I imagine that we would. We would have the same friends, and like the same girls, and think the same things, and like the same stuff, and it would be just like having a second me around. I'm sure we'd have our differences in some ways, but we would be the same under it all, and I think that I would really like that. Then again, just having one friend I don't have to be scared to lose to this war right now would be nice.
I think that might be why I keep thinking about you so much nowadays. As I slowly lose everyone whose parents didn't come from Germany, since they're really the only ones who understand what it's like to go through all of this just like I am, since they, too, are facing the same discrimination for something they can't even change, I can't help but to wonder what it would be like to have one person who is solid and with me through all of this. I mean, we're twins, right? That binds us together for life, and that means you couldn't leave me if you wanted to.
But, unfortunately, Tom, you did leave, but I know you didn't want to. Momma said you cried a whole lot in the days leading up to your death, and I don't remember it, since I was little, too, but it just twists my heart in such a terrible way when I think about it. When I was little, she used to lie about it, but when I got older and she thought that I could handle hearing what happened, she explained what had happened. We were real sick, and she said that both of us had such discomfort for about a week. Then, once I got better, you got worse and worse until your little body just couldn't fight anymore, and you lost your life to some silly little virus nobody even had a name for.
I wish it didn't happen. I wish we didn't get sick way back then. I wish I didn't have to lose you – not just to disease, but to anything in general, because how you died isn't as important to me as the overall fact that you did die is. As I go farther and farther through my own life, the pain of doing it all without you gets worse. Sometimes I wonder how I can stand it, how I'll go on without you.
I'm afraid I have to go now, though, Tom. Momma's coming upstairs, and I don't want her to think that I've gone funny, writing letters to my dead brother. I just hope there's some way for you to read this up in Heaven, to know that I still think about you. I miss you every single day, and I just want you to know that forever, no matter what ever happens, that I love you with all my heart.
I love you. I miss you. Godspeed.
- Bill
