Dear Lucas (2020)

Today is election day in the United States of America. As people read this, their minds will be elsewhere. They will be thinking of all that is at stake tonight and for the days, weeks, months, and years ahead. Someone will win. Someone will lose. America’s unofficial sport will shift its focus. Some will play offense. Some will play defense. The beat that is American democracy will go on methodically until the next contest.

Yet, this is not just election day. Not for me. Not for us. Not for the people who knew and loved you. Today is the day you left us.

As I approach this letter, I do so in the midst of a storm that has fundamentally changed this country. Since late January, our country has lived with the reality of a once in a century pandemic. Since March, many of us have only known the confines of our homes. We have missed birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, funerals, graduations, and hundreds of other little celebrations. Millions of us are without work. As of today, 226,000 of our fellow Americans are dead. Dreams and plans have been placed on the back burner. Our faith in public institutions has been shaken to its core. America has changed.

Little brother, I wish I could say this is the full scope of what ails us, but something just as sinister is waiting in the wings.