Tracy L. Ivie
i love you daddy <3
Clark Cleveland
Dear Mr. Cleveland,
It has been five months and twenty-twenty six days since his last breath. Five months and thirty one days since the last time I saw him. When I said, “I love you” just one last time, I never guessed it would be for the last time. Because of you, I never got to say goodbye.
On July 15th of just last year, I woke up and proceeded to get ready for the day. I got a phone call from my mother explaining that Officer Eastmen was out side with another officer. She asked me to let them in and see what was going on. I hung up the phone and walked up the stairs to the front door. I greeted the two officers and asked if they would like to come in. They looked at me and said they would wait till my mother was home. I stepped in side and went down stairs to finish getting ready for the day. I had just put on my jeans and a red button up shirt when I heard my mom come in form the garage. I didn't think much of it until I heard her cry out “why”, and “who, who did this” I ran up the stairs to see what was going on. Her and my sister, were sitting on the couch with two officers sitting in front of them both sobbing. She looked to me and said, “come sit down”. I didn't move. I asked what was going on. An officer stood and turned, looking at me with sadness in his eyes and tears gathering but still holding his composure. Uttering the words “there has been an accident” followed by my mother crying out, “daddy is gone Jo, He was shot”. My heart sank and everything around me turned to a slow pace almost as if it was all a nightmare. And it was. It was a nightmare turned to reality.
Hundreds of questions and thoughts came to my mind that day. But the one thing that hasn't left my mind since that day is that I truly don't remember the last time I said, “I love you” to my daddy. And sometimes I think he doesn't know how much I loved him. He was the perfect dad. I miss his loving embrace, the feeling of his long muscly arms wrapped around you was the safest place you could be at any given time.
Before I knew who you were, I had forgiven you. I forgave you because I didn’t think you were worth the energy it would take to keep that bitterness and hatred. My only problem was I tried to bottle up the anger as well. I even held my anger in as I watched your court trial.
You could have been somebody. You had the intelligence. You had the abilities to have been able to do many good things. But you wanted to risk it all for greed.
If my father had died of a heart attack or in a car accident I could have accepted it. But the simple truth is, you stole my father’s life.
For the past six months I have felt emptiness and not known how to fill it, and will never know how to fill it. He isn’t here to walk me down the isle when I get married one day, to dance with me at my wedding, or to hold the children i will have in the future. I am eighteen years old and still have my whole life a head of me to live with out his loving embrace. Even if you spend your whole life sitting in a cell you still have more of a chance than you gave my father. I don’t want anyone else to live the anguish I have for the last six months, because of you.
But, I forgive you. Because I know you’re sorry.
Jordan Brittany Ivie
