We Are All Made of Stars

by Rowan Coleman

the one thing that sets us apart from other animals, the one thing that makes us human. Hope.

Dear Son, I worked hard for a lot of your life. It’s what you did in my day. Men went out to work, and came home when the kids were in bed. Your mother took control of the home, and I took control of the money. We had our up and downs, like every couple, but it seemed to work, or I thought it did. I’ve watched you grow up, and do things I could never have dreamt of. Going off to university, starting companies from scratch, not that I really get what it is that you do still, which I know annoys you, because you think that means I don’t care or that I’m not proud of you. But that isn’t true. I do care, and I am proud, I’m just from another age, and I couldn’t understand even when I tried to. You don’t go to work in an office on a cooked breakfast. You work from home. You pick Josie and Stevie up from school. You cook for them, and nurse them when they are sick. And when they were babies, you changed their diapers and stayed up all night feeding them. I’ll admit, it baffled me a bit. But I’ve had time to think, and I was thinking about our last big family lunch, the last one before the tumor changed all the time we had together. I was thinking about the way the children looked at you, the way they love you, the way they laughed, the closeness between you. You are more than their father; you are their parent. And I wished things had been different back when you were a boy. I wish I’d been home sometimes before you were asleep. I wish I’d been the sort of father that you are no...

But as I pierce the cover of my ready-meal and whack it in the microwave, I wonder if the blinking of the phone message and the knock on the door tonight—if they are all ways of the universe reminding me that this perfect, carefree, no-strings life I’ve made for myself can be kind of disappointing sometimes.

“People probably aren’t as curious about you as you think, you know. They’ve all their own worries. No one really ever looks too deeply at someone else’s life unless it affects them.

The idea of all those people looking at me, noticing me. I used to like it, being seen. Being noticed, turning heads, but these days—I think life is easier if you’re invisible.

“Never regret love,” she says. “That’s my motto. I don’t ever regret having loved someone too much, only not loving someone enough.”

Be kind to people, just be kind. You never know what other people are going through, so whenever you can, however you can, be kind. Be true to yourself. When I say that, I mean just live life the best way that you can, honestly, decently. You won’t be perfect. You’ll make mistakes, maybe hurt people, and people will hurt you. But that’s okay as long as you can know that everything you did, you did with the right intentions.

Don’t wait for anything. Just do it. There is never a right time, except for now. The right time is always now.

All you can do is look to your left and your right and try to be kind to whoever is there. When I stopped thinking only about myself, and started to see all the people in the world who didn’t have anyone to make sure they mattered, that’s when my life started to mean something.

“You do. You fight that last battle, the very last one. You fight till your last breath for the people that you love, and your dreams, the future that you want. And you can fight for your past too, because it’s not too late to know how much it mattered to her, as well as to you. That’s what you do. You fight. We fight. We fight for the people we love.”

Goodness only knows how the world will have changed in eighteen years’ time, Angelina, but when you have lived as long as I, you learn one thing, which is, humans do not change. So here is my best advice to you: Do not trust a man with unkempt facial hair. Vote. Even if they are all hopelessly inadequate, pick the least terrible one, and vote. My mother fought hard to get you that vote. Keep your own finances, and let your husband keep his. Study hard. A good education is worth a thousand kisses. Wear sturdy shoes except at weddings or parties, and your back will thank you. Good manners cost nothing. Bad manners can cost you everything.

The truth will heal you in the end, but a lie will always fester. I think that’s kind of brave.”

What is love if you don’t have to fight to keep it? What is life if you don’t fight every second to live

And that’s what it’s about, isn’t it? Love? Love’s about making it last, making it stick, making it count, even when it hurts, when times are hard, when people change, when life changes them. If you love someone, then you have to want to love them, whoever they are—and if you don’t, then that isn’t love.”

I learned that what people say has a thousand times more meaning when it’s written down. On the page, the words become immortal, beautiful, personal, heartfelt, and special. They are words that will always be there, to be read, again and again and again. A letter is a memory that will never be lost, will never fade or be forgotten.