Letters people chose to share.

Dad had two families. I learned about you when I was twenty-nine. I forgive the hiding. I forgive my own years of treating you as a complication rather than a sister. We have lunch in October. I will bring the photo album. Ubuntu — we are because each other is. Late, but no less true.

You were not a child. You were not a person. You were exactly what you were, which was a dog, and I loved you, and I am writing this to a dog. Thank you for the fourteen years. Thank you especially for the last six months.

I'm sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you. The Hawaiian aunties say you repeat this until the rock in the chest becomes a stone you can hold. I've been holding mine for nine months. It's smaller now.

I forgive you for not being what I needed. I forgive myself for needing it. Sumud — steadfastness — is the practice you taught me without naming it. I am steadfast in the new country, in the old language, in the body that carries both.

You saw a Black man on his own porch and called nine-one-one. Bryan Stevenson would say the system is what it is and you are part of it. I forgive the call to the extent that I have to in order to walk past your house. I do not forgive the system. I am organizing for what comes after it. The walking past is one thing. The organizing is another.

I expected you. I forgive the not-showing. I do not forgive the not-explaining. Some absences are information. I have read the information. I am not angry. I am informed. The friendship is what it is now. Smaller.

I warned you. You married him. The marriage went the way I said. I forgive being right. I forgive myself for needing you to admit I was right. Teshuvah — the returning — works both directions. I am returning to you without the score. Bring the kids on Saturday. I have made enough food.

Ìyá mi, I am writing this in English because Yoruba left my tongue when we left Lagos and I do not have the words for what I owe you. The community elders would call this ètùtù — the making of peace. I make it now. I do not call back the years. I unbar the door of the house in my chest.

Once was the whole thing. I left the next morning. I forgive my younger self for the six months before I knew it would happen, and the eight minutes before I left after it did. I do not forgive you. I am not required to. The leaving is the practice. I am still doing it some mornings.

I forgive the moment. I no longer relive the accident every time I close my eyes.

I was twelve and furious and you were thirty and trying. I am thirty now. I see what you were doing. I forgive my younger self for being cruel to you. I thank you for not retaliating. Ubuntu — I am because you were. I would not be soft today if you had been hard back then.

You hid in the closet when they fought. You thought it was your fault. It was never your fault. I came back to tell you. Metta — may you be safe. May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you live with ease. I am saying these for the nine-year-old. She has not heard them in this order before.

I never told you I forgave the slap. You died thinking I still kept it. I'm telling you now into the kitchen ceiling because the kitchen is where you slapped me and where you also fed me, and the same hand was both.

We have not spoken since the funeral. Three years. I forgive what was said at the wake. You forgave it the same week. I am the one still holding it. Today I am setting it down. I am calling on Sunday. I do not know what I will say. I will say something.

I do not know what happened. I will not know. ACT — I am noticing the story I want to write about you. I am setting it down. The not-knowing is the assignment. I forgive my need to have an ending. The letter is its own ending.

You took eighteen months to decide what a competent judge could see in an hour. My daughter spent the eighteen months in limbo. I forgive my impulse to relitigate every ruling in my head. ACT — defusion. The ruling is not my recurring thought. My recurring thought is the limbo. I am setting it down. My daughter is fourteen now. She is doing fine.

I am sixty-three and my knees are not what they were. I forgive every magazine I read at twenty about not looking my age. I look my age. My age looks fine. The magazines are out of business. I am still here. That is the actual contest and I am winning it.

Six years for the green card. Four lawyers. Twelve thousand dollars. I will not forgive the system. I will forgive my own exhaustion with it. The exhaustion is what eats me, not the system. I keep the anger at the system. I lay down the exhaustion. They are different. Sumud — I am rooted in the new place.

The Vatican will not acknowledge me. The diocese sent a form letter. I am not waiting for them. Mechilah does not require their repentance. I release my claim on the debt. I keep my testimony. Both are mine to hold.

I forgive the ending. I keep only the part where we were kind to each other — the kitchen in October, your father's laugh, the dog we almost adopted. The rest can stay where you left it.