Dear Santa Claus, today, my teacher told me to write a letter to you. She told me that if I wished hard enough, that you would grant me my wish, no matter how impossible it was. As any other kid would do, I started writing. Halfway through, I asked my teacher, “What is the address of Santa Claus?”
"Put it in your parents’ bedroom," she smiled at me and tucked a loose strand in my right ear.
"If I did that, they would read it." I pouted.
"If you did that, I’m sure it will be given on Christmas. They are, of course, your Santa Claus. It is the whole rationale of this thing." She smiled at me with her two front teeth slightly twitched to the wrong side. I hated that smile— it mocked my own.
After that, I refused to write. My teacher was furious. She told me that at an early age, I was growing backwards. So I got my pen, my paper and I started writing this. My teacher didn’t understand. My Santa Claus was dead and putting my wish into print will only make it seem more real— in a way that I may not be able to take. After all, all I wanted for Christmas is to have Christmas with my dead parents. If everything was possible, could this possibly happen?
My mom was a writer. She always told me that messages were better written than typed. That’s why she and my aunt communicated through snail mail even if she was two blocks away. I remember my dad getting her a bunch of scented papers and envelopes for her birthday. It delighted her more than the time my father surprised her with flowers and gold. I wanted to be just like her.
I remember offering to get the mail back then, only to slip a mail into my pocket to empty its contents and steal the envelope but through the years, my collection has faded away. Today, I used the only envelope left from my stack, the one which had red and blue stripes on the front and came occasionally on the mail when my parents still lived. Now, my happiness came rare. And if it did, it only came in bundles of two. And they weren’t letters. They were electric bills, which only saddened me more.
I didn’t know where to put this letter after I licked my envelope shut. I would have left it in their bedroom, pretended they said no then proceed with my life of routines — school, home, market, school, home. That way, it would have been more comforting to think that they rejected my wish than to think they didn’t read it at all. I would have done that, but it is inexistent. After they died together in a car accident, they left a big amount of money in my honor. A big amount of debt money. My aunt became my legal guardian and since she was not well-off herself, she had to take me to the swing to tell me she had to sell the house. At that time, I was still waiting for my parents to go home.
It was only when the house was sold, bought, burned and transformed into a two- acres farm that I realized my parents weren’t going to come back. They didn’t have to tell me. I could tell from the looks my aunt gave me whenever we passed the lot where the house used to be and how she would always tell me that they will always be there even though they weren’t.
I decided to leave this in the library. First and foremost, because this was my mother’s sanctuary and have become mine as well. Of the many libraries, why did I have to choose the one far from my home when I could have put it in the library in front of my aunt’s house? Simply because this library was where my father and mother met. And together, they wrote a book here.
It was the only book I cried on. Not to be bias or anything.
Dear Santa Claus, I want to be with my parents this Christmas. By the time this is read, it, most probably, has come true.The only way this can happen is if they revive or if I die. So dear Santa Claus, dear reader, you are reading a message from a dead person.
As you can see, I carefully positioned this message to get the right reader. Assuming this has not been misplaced, it is exactly on the north right corner of the library, group 8, shelf 2, row 4. Or in other terms, “The tragics.”
I put it in here because I want to let you know that even though others may call my act of suicide a tragic or even cowardice, let me tell you that I am happy. And it isn’t a tragedy when it’s a happy ending.
Enclosed this envelope is the small notebook where my mother and father wrote their story. We didn’t have enough money to publish it. But I swore to myself that in one way or another, this will be shown to the world, except I can’t do that anymore from my position. So reader, I want you to take this, get a publisher, get the money from the sales, have it imprinted under your name and live a happy life just like I did.
Now that my wish for this Christmas has come true which is to be with my parents, I’m going to make another wish even though I’m dead. For next year’s Christmas and the year after that and until the day this book has become legit, I want you to get that book published.
So do me a favor and be my Santa Claus. Thank you so much. Merry Christmas. Enjoy the holidays.
From,
Anna