Bubblegum

by Adam Levin

If your father has done as I’ve asked him to—and I have no reason to believe he hasn’t, he promised—you were given this letter in the very same moment that you learned of my death, and, as you read it the first time, I doubt much of what I’m saying is getting through to you, but it comforts me to think that when you read this letter down the line, when you’re older, you’ll know I avoided the very worst. Not just that I didn’t (as I believe I’ve already demonstrated) choose, while in a state of rage or confusion, to die, but that I did not die in a state of rage or confusion. That I died when I should have, when it was the single best thing I could have done, and that I knew it was the single best thing I could have done. Please, for the sake of your own well-being, try to know those things as soon as you can. Knowing them won’t by any means make my death less devastating for you—I’m your only mother, and I’m gone—but it should mitigate any devastation that might have otherwise arisen from the fact that I died of suicide. That, at least, is my hope. Given the content of your journals, I think it’s a reasonable hope.