DEAR GRANDMA
This letter is in regards to the way you talk down about my father, Alex Artiburn. If I do not convince you to discontinue demeaning his character in this letter, then I'm not sure what will, and I'm not sure what messures to take to do so. Please regard these words solidly, because this is not something to be taken lightly.
Firstly, you are always making remarks, even throwing out guesses, about the manner in which he lives, his income, the place he calls home...well, let me enlighten you a bit. Pearl Eades, dad's grandmother, lived to be 76. Most all of her life, in fact all of her married life, was spent in a house made by dad's grandpa. This house in known as "the house down the hill," which Ricky Artiburn, dad's brother, later inherited, and which is currently uninhabited given the weight of two very important and beloved people who died there. Around 1947, dad's grandfather bought a little more land surrounding his abode, and he himself built two more houses on the property--one which later burnt down and one which still stands today. That house is 817 Leona St. He may have even built more on Leona street, as there use to be 3 more houses then there are now on the block, but they were taken down and forever buried in the woods after a new owner came into town. You care very much about the items your parents left behind, and their parents, and so forth, just as dad cares about the land that he knows so fondly as home; where the soil was broken up every year for Pearl's beloved gardens, where he use to ride ponies, and where he has many fond memories of family, friends, and growing up. Much of his childhood memories and would-be tokens of keepsake were lost in the fire of the house he lived in as a boy, and so this is what he has to call his own, his inheritance.
Is my father not dignified enough for you? I shall share a bit of his history with you, maybe even perhaps sway your own dead-set opinions for a moment. Jeffery Alexander Artiburn was born in 1960, the youngest after two other siblings, to a couple rich in patriotism and southern heritage. His father served the country for a few years, and later became an automechanic. Tragedy struck, however, when my dad was only eight years old: his father died. It hit his mother the hardest, and she later moved away, leaving he and his siblings to be raised by their grandmother, Pearl Eades. Hard as it was, he and the rest of the family continued to press on--little Alex attended Fairmount, then Vance, all the way to Tennessee High, where he ended his education short of graduation. Frustration had gotten the better of him, after failing twice, and he recieved his GED while his peers recieved their diplomas.
Dad once told me, after I'd said one of the most foolish things in my life, that he'd only wanted to give me something he didn't get the chance to have; something my brother and I would have never gotten the chance to have: a father. And what is so wrong with that? My dad was barely 28, maybe even 27, when he met my brother and I; he had his whole future ahead of him. Why did he choose to stay, why? I could care less as to what the answer is, I'm just glad he did, and I'm proud to call him my dad, my father.
Imagine, for a moment, that people judge people not by what they wear, not by their profession, not by where they live or what they have to eat on Friday nights, but by who they are. My dad is a wonderful person, and it's a shame you won't open up your mind to that. He's never done anything wrong to you; never once called you names or judged you by the way you kept your house (do you remember setting the stove on fire twice) or by who you associate with, or any of that. Is it because you think he should have made Stevie come back up here? I'll fill you in on something: he tried, and he tried very hard, even swayed Stevie once or twice. The truth is he could not, because it was not the right thing to do, just as it wouldn't have been the right thing to do to tell him to come down there to live, which he did not do. The right thing was for Stevie to make his own decision, and he did. Technically, Stevie was/is an adult and is pretty well free to do as he chooses, as long as it's legal.
I only wish you could be happy for the both of them, not sad or angry because you don't have him here for yourself. You know why I'm happy about it? Because I can wake up every morning and know that they're keeping each other alive, and among other things, they've got each other, father and son, and I think that's a precious thing to hold on to, don't you? So the next time you start talking about my father as if he's the dirt underneath your shoe, think twice about what he means to us, Stevie and I, and think how much less we'd have in the world if we didn't have him. As hard as it will be for you to believe, grandma, meaning goes far beyond the material world.