Questionable Taste: A Letter from My Son

Dear Dad,
Hey, that sounds kind of weird. Dad. You probably didn't think you'd be hearing that anytime soon...Well, no one really ever does. Although I suppose it's not actually relevant, because you aborted me. You know. Before I was born and all. Even paid to have it done, and felt relief, relief of all things when I was gone. Rejection feels bad enough when you're alive, you know. But anyway, Dad, yes, you aborted me, and for that, I have only one thing to say.

Thank you!

Holy shit, you have no idea how fucked-up I would have been. For real. But just to let you know, since I'm here in places that Schroedinger could only dream about, let me give you a brief rundown of the life I would have had, if you'd made the boneheaded mistake of keeping me.

I probably don't need to tell you that, while I was gestating, your girlfriend took a morning-after pill and dropped tabs, and did so with a false sense of security because the zoomtards at health services told her she wasn't pregnant. Yeah. And c'mon Dad, anyone who hits the sauce as much as you do shouldn't be fathering anyone, let alone me. But hell, you weren't trying to have me, so no worries. Anyway, my life. You can probably imagine that your sex life would have been ruined by her being pregnant, and you're right. Although you two love each other, it would be battered to pieces by her being pregnant, and you'd start to resent each other, you resenting her for getting pregnant, and she, you, for making her so. This would have gone on, but you'd have resolved to stay together. Finding out I was a boy, you'd have named me before I was born, and incidentally a good-sized fight would have broken out over the last name. Eventually settling on hers (probably knowing what was going to happen), you named me Stephen after your dad, and then I was born, at which point your resentment of each other turned into a quiet sort of unspoken mutual distaste. It's really hard to care about someone when you half-blame them for ruining your life.

Me? I was all sorts of wack. For one thing I was born retarded, and pretty appalling to look at, and both problems only got worse as time went on. Keeping me alive put you in the poorhouse pretty much, and you wound up living at your parents' house with a baby. Sure, you loved me, but you stopped caring about my mom, and you two eventually broke up. As she could not possibly support a child, that went to you. Your life was wrecked, your career never happened, we lived with your parents until you were thirty, and school was hell for me, absolute hell. After my mom, you were single for the rest of your life because no one wanted to date the parent of a retarded, deformed kid. Speaking of, school was pretty much hell in every way. I was picked on constantly, had no friends, and even the teachers hated me. Although I was far too fucking stupid to catch all of the barbs thrown my way, I got enough of it, and though you were a really good father, I mean come on. It's not like I really understood anything you told me. Mom saw me a lot, and tried to be a parent, but you two couldn't stand each other because of all the bullshit that flew years ago. You missed her forever, and she missed you. Eventually it was off to high school for me, where the fact that we were one of the poorest families in town was certainly fodder for discussion, and quite a few beatings against which my palsied hands could offer no real defense. Unable to take a hint, I asked a lot of really pretty girls to the prom, and was met, mostly, with "I'd rather die, you freak." I went to prom anyway, and sat alone, once or twice being pelted with food. You moved out at thirty, but I never could, because social security or none I was too much of a basket case to make the requisite loot, and I never moved out. The rest you can probably guess yourself.

So, here I am in potentia, and very, very happy to stay that way. Pro-lifers say that a baby, if it knew, would want to be born, but I can say in all honesty that if I knew in the womb what I know at the moment, if asked I'd say "fuck that, I'll chill in the realm of permanent possibility, hanging out with Metallica's credibility."

So thank you, Dad. And Mom too. You cut the plant off at the seed, rather than let it grow sick and miserable and wishing it had never been born. Er, metaphorically. I never even became a person, mostly just a blood clot, but you were as close to a parent as anyone can be, and I was as close to your child as you've had so far, and in those terms, by letting me go rather than consigning me to a life of unrelenting hell on earth, I'd have to say that you and D. were the best parents anyone could ask for. Anyway, I'm out like your sex drive for a week after the abortion. Laters. -S