Samantha's birthday card for Jonathan

Dear Jonathan,

I remember I gave you a card when you went off to college, I was so proud of you, and it was a long card, I always wrote long, emotional, sentimental cards, and I put it in your suit case, and you never mentioned it. And then after that, I don’t remember how many cards I wrote to you, while you were in college for your birthday, probably not that many, as I didn’t think you read them – you were a teenage boy at Emory – figured it wasn’t likely you wanted long mushy cards from your older sister. It was only years later, I think after you graduated and moved back home, that I asked you if you had ever read that card, and you said that you had opened it, but were too emotional to read it, and that touched me so much .Little did I realize how much those cards would have meant to you, how you were as sentimental and emotional about the Family as I was. I learned that really the most at my wedding, when you gave a speech about our relationship, and how much I had helped you, and so many people must have thought you were talking about drugs, but we knew you were talking about your relationship with Jen. How I wish I had a copy of that speech you gave to me at my rehearsal dinner. How I wish so many things, that I had written you a card about how I felt about you for all your birthdays, so that now I could have found them in your room and kept them always, (bc we now know you did in fact keep all the cards); how I wish most of course that you were in your apartment right now, and that I could call you and say “so excited for your birthday tomorrow cutie” and you would say in your adorable little voice “yea-eeees” and we would then hang up and say “love you” in your most special way, and be going to the palm tomorrow night for your 27th. And I wish I could write you a card and say how much I love you, and how proud I am of you, and how you are the best person in the family, the kindest, the most forgiving, the most thoughtful and loving and positive and hopeful, the most passionate, the youngest, that you have your whole life ahead of you, and don’t rush things. That I know you want to catch up to me and Sabrina, even though you are so much younger. You want to be settled in your career as a brilliant writer and possible director/producer, that you want to give back to the Family what you think we all gave you, that you want to continue the Family’s legacy as the younger generation, and most of all, that what you want most is to be a father, to find love and get married and have children. How I wish I could promise you that all these things will happen!!! And then I would reminisce how many birthdays we celebrated together, all your parties, baseball at HM, party rooms, jimmy nissenson and steven and roger coming, all our friends always loved you so much, and of course, going even farther back, waiting for you to be born, and the day you were born, being in the 5th grade and hearing the announcement “will samantha and Sabrina Kleier please come to mr fountain’s office” and the phonecall that you were born!!! I would reminisce about you choosing a car over a bar mitzvah (smart choice) and getting you gift certificates at first wok and roller blades and nintendos and game boys. I loved you not just as my baby brother, but felt like a mother to you as well. I loved you so so much.

All I want is to hold your hand and hug you, and protect you, and take back that morning, have you at the summer house, maybe had you been with us we could have saved you – I keep thinking that, I even had a dream we were at mom and dad’s, just the two of us, and you were in your Ralph lauren boxers and your teddy bear t shirt walking from room to room, and I kept following you, for in the dream I knew if I was there nothing bad would happen to you. More than that I just wish we could reverse the clock, and go back to when you were born, and start over, and skip over sept 5 and have that day never happen, and then I can get into bed right now, and call you, b/c you were always the last person in the family to go to sleep, and you’d probably have jay z on the stereo and be writing a scene or on the way out to meet friends, and I would tell you how excited I am for dinner tomorrow night, and to see you at the office tomorrow, and maybe discuss the screenplay you are working on, or tell you that chase has really grown up even this week after his sleepover at mom and dad’s – in your room - , he is different, and just wait till you see him. And you will say “I can’t wait to see him tomorrow night.” Oh Jonathan, come home, come back to us. Don’t leave. Let us celebrate your birthday with you please.

And now it is morning, and I want to tell you Happy Birthday Cutie, you wouldn’t be up yet anyway, so I will just keep thinking Happy Birthday to you, all day, and anticipating later this evening when the Family goes to the Palm to celebrate your 27th, and waiting for you to walk in the door, always a little late, with a big grin, and a big hug for everyone.
We love you and miss you beyond words.

Your big sister, Samantha