Excerpts from the Suicide Letters of Jonathon Bender (b.1967-d.2000)

Michael Kimball

Dear Ted Poor,

I’m sorry for hitting you over the head with my Scooby-Doo lunch box and cracking your head open with it, but you were a lot bigger than I was then. I was afraid of you and I wanted you and your brother to stop picking on me on the way home from school.

I hope that the doctors were able to patch up the crack in your head, but I have always wondered if they could see inside your head through it.

Dear Mom and Dad,

Thank you for giving me the stuffed dog for my eighth birthday, though I still don’t know why I couldn’t have a living one. I know that you didn’t think that I would feed it and clean up after it, but I would have. I thought that if I took good care of the stuffed dog that you were going to get me a real one for my next birthday.

Dear Tommy,

Thank you for being my friend and playing with me even though nobody else could see you. But I wish that you hadn’t run away from home and never come back. I’m sure that it must have been better to grow up without a mom and a dad, but I liked playing hide-and-go-seek with you since nobody else but me could find you.

Dear Mom,

I’m sorry that I didn’t eat the animal crackers after I asked you to buy them for me. I was afraid that if I did that we wouldn’t be able to go to the circus because there wouldn’t be any animals left or that the animals might have broken legs or missing heads.

Dear Dad,

I’m sorry that I embarrassed you because I struck out each time that I came up to bat that first summer that I played little league baseball. I really was trying to get a hit.

Dear Mom and Dad,

I’m sorry that I wore the Burger King crown for most of the summer of 1975, but I really did think that I was the Burger King, especially since nobody else was wearing a crown.

Dear Dad,

I’m sorry that I got the lawn all muddy and sloppy by running through the sprinklers that you had put out in the front yard. I know that you were watering the lawn so that the grass would grow. But I was so skinny and short then, and I thought that the water might help me to grow too.

Dear Dad,

I’m sorry that I usually went up to my bedroom when you came home from work. I thought that if you didn’t see me then you wouldn’t be angry with me.

Dear Mom and Dad,

Why did you teach me the child’s prayer that was about me dying in my sleep before I woke up? I have always wondered if that was why I so often dreamed that I was dying. Did you know that I was often tired because I had to keep waking myself up from those dreams?

Dear Santa Claus,

Thank you for bringing me a bike for Christmas and for putting training wheels on it so that I didn’t fall off of it when I rode it. I knew that there was too much snow on the ground for me to ride it outside then, but I was so excited that you came to our house that I still wanted to sit on it in the living room and turn the handlebars back and forth as if I were going around corners.

1981

Dear Dad,

Thank you for leaving all of your magazines with the naked women in them underneath your bed where they were easy for me to find. Did you ever look at them yourself or did you just buy them for me? Were you worried that I didn’t like girls?

Dear Dr. Newman,

I’m sorry that I was afraid to take my clothes off so that you could examine me. I didn’t want you to see me naked or for you to touch me with your thick fingers or those cold instruments. But you made me feel as if there really were something wrong with me. Is that why you referred me to another doctor?

Dear Coach Evans,

Thank you for teaching me to pace myself for those long distance races. I was only starting out so fast to get away from all of the other runners.

Dear Dr. Adler,

I’m sorry that I stopped taking the medication that you prescribed for me. It gave me headaches and made me thirsty, but I stopped taking it because I didn’t think that I needed it anymore. I thought that I was thinking okay again.

Dear Mr. Ryan,

I’m sorry that I didn’t submit an insect collection for my final project in biology class and that you had to flunk me for it. But I wasn’t going to catch insects and then put them inside jars to suffocate them with alcohol fumes. That just made me think about how my dad smelled when he came into the house after he had been out drinking and how all of us would scatter when he tried to swat at us.

Dear Dr. Adler,

I’m sorry that I stopped taking my medication again. I didn’t think that I needed it anymore until I realized that I was thinking that the trees were umbrellas, that it was raining apples, and that the raindrops wanted me to eat them until I drowned.

Dear Courtney Betenbough,

I’m sorry that I was so mean to you and that I called you names like “fat girl” and that I made “mooing” noises at you when you walked by me in the hallway at school. You probably won’t believe this, but I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. I was doing it because you reminded me of my dad and I wanted to hurt his feelings.

1991

Dear Jessica Cooper,

I’m sorry that I stood you up for the date that we were supposed to have on Valentine’s Day in 1991. Do you think that we could have been happy together?

Dear Heather Fairing,

I’m sorry that I wouldn’t open the windows in our apartment. I know how hot it was that summer that we lived together. But I was afraid that somebody would climb up the fire escape and break in on us. There was already too much that was missing from us.

Dear Dad,

Sometimes when I fart, the smell of it reminds me of you and the way that you used to sit on the toilet in the bathroom with the bathroom door always open.

1997

Dear Sara,

I’m sorry that I stopped coming to bed at night and started sleeping on the couch with the television on. The station going off of the air and all of that static that came on after that blurred how I felt.

Dear Sara,

I’m sorry that I ran over the squirrel with my car when we were driving to the restaurant. I thought that it was going to stay on the other side of the road. I didn’t think that it would double back on itself.

Dear Dad,

I’m sorry that nobody could hear you when you were choking to death on a chicken bone and that you could not get yourself up off of the floor to try to give yourself the Heimlich maneuver. You must have felt very scared and alone.

Dear Mom,

I’m sorry that I didn’t go back to Michigan for Dad’s funeral even though you thought that I should have. But he didn’t know where I lived when he died and I didn’t want his ghost to follow me home to Illinois. I didn’t want to be haunted by him.

Dear Sara,

I’m sorry that I didn’t chase after my lucky hat after the wind blew it off of my head. I know that I should have at least tried to run after it, but it seemed so dirty after it rolled on the ground that I didn’t think that I could ever put it on my head again. Besides, I think that it was listening to what I was thinking.

Dear Dad,

I’m sorry that you died from eating too much or too fast or the wrong thing or however that chicken bone got stuck in your throat. Sometimes it makes me afraid to eat anything when I am alone.

Other times I can’t stop eating when I feel lonely, even if I don’t think that the food will choke me and kill me too. •

Michael Kimball has written two novels—The Way the Family Got Away, which has been translated into many languages, and How Much of Us There Was. He lives in Baltimore with his wife.

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