We all need Hope

I open my post box to find a bundle of letters in black envelopes. My address is written in neat, artistic hand, inked firmly in silver lettering.
There is no return address.
I curl up in an armchair with a cup of tea. With slightly trembling hands I open the first envelope.

My dear,
I didn’t know who to write to, so I wrote to a stranger who might understand me, because you don’t know ‘who’ I am.
You don’t know my social security number, my yearly income, the neighborhood I live in and the type of food my cat eats for breakfast.
You don’t think you know me before you even said hello.
Hi, I’m glad I don’t know you. Now I can imagine you’re someone strong and amazing.

My dear,
Needles are bad for the baby, so the doctor said to me. But could either of us live without insulin?
They think they know me. So now, they’re trying to ‘help’ me. I wonder how long it will take them to kill me.

My dear,
The baby is kicking. So is her dad. I’m shielding my belly, but my hands aren’t big enough to cover my face as well.
Today I imagined you came in and shot him. Does that make me evil? Inhumane?

My dear,
I might call her Hope. She’s all I have, and she’s not really here yet.
Does this mean I don’t have anything?

My dear,
I took a rolling pin and smashed something; it had to be a bone.
They took him away, so he couldn’t break me anymore.

My dear,
I’m getting strange phone calls. I recognize his drunken voice but he keeps insisting its not him. He covers himself with my dead mother.
Our wedding ring paid for his bail. It was my father’s.

My dear,
The shed went on fire last night.
I don’t think I can take much more.
He’s saying he’ll burn me next.

My dear,
Do you know me now? Could I count on you to come in and save me?
I like to believe so.
I like to believe you love me and care for me, because no one except Hope does, and she’s not here yet.

I drop the sheet of paper. I’m sobbing out loud with Brian Adams singing nonchalantly in the background.
I think I spilled the tea somewhere; the cup is nowhere to be seen.
“I would, I care!” I choke out, tearing open the next envelope. There aren’t many left.

My dear,
Hope is early, I’m not sure, should I be relieved she made it or worried that they have her wired up to so many machines. She’s tiny and beautiful and mine. He would never take her away. He can never harm her.
I won’t let him.
A lioness seems like a pussycat to me now.

My dear,
They are keeping her longer, ‘just to be safe’.
It broke my heart to leave, but I know, I have to save her, the way she saved me.
Police put a restraining order on him, like that would work.
I need to get to my father’s cabin.

The letters seem to change, the writing becomes hectic, words spread violently over the page. The sheet is stained with charcoal fingerprints.

My dear,
I see the woods burning. He’s coming for me.
What did I ever do to make him hate me so much? I loved him. But he hated Hope. Then, he started to hate me.
I had to choose, didn’t I?

My dear,
I see blood, all around me. Its like someone wrapped a crimson shawl around my head and plunged me underwater.
The trees are still burning but its awfully cold.
I sing to Hope, even though she can’t hear me.

I take the last envelope – its different, plain white. There is a return address of a hospital in Seattle on the back of it, written in a hand of a stranger.


My dear,
If you are reading this, it means that self defense is a federal crime.
Please love me, please care for me, for Hope.
I beg you to find her. Give my Hope a home, a family. She saved me, so I could save her. At first, I thought I should save her from him, but I was wrong. He was only a part of the problem.
She deserves a chance. She can change lives, save people. Its what she was meant to do from the very start.

She saved me. If you let her, she’ll save you too.

With love,
Me.