Just in Case God Pulls the Plug and Presses the Stop Button

I'm not angry, I'm not sad, I'm not depressed - I just think about my own mortality - a lot now.

I want to express my gratitude to Patris and Calvin for being Raising Myles' first paid subscribers. I never anticipated earning anything from these letters, but in the spirit of receiving, I have enabled paid subscriptions. While I don't intend to put up paywalls or create exclusive content for paid subscribers, I do want to provide opportunities for people to contribute. All proceeds generated from Raising Myles will go towards Myles' 529 Plan, because college ain’t cheap - I've got the student loans to prove it. So if you’d like to support my work, you now have a way and a compelling reason to do so. 

14 Weeks Old

Dear Myles,

I'm not angry, I'm not sad, I'm not depressed. At least at this very moment, as I am writing this letter, I'm not. I'm exhausted but full of joy, so full that my life feels like it's bursting at the seams, like pants you've outgrown but me and mommy won't let go of. I am so full of joy and love that I think about not being here to see it all through. I think about my own mortality - a lot.

My Mission 

My mission now is simple: stay alive for as long as possible. Everything else - the house, the car, the job - is just extra to make the journey more comfortable. My mission is to see you grow up.

But I am not at mission control. I don't believe a gracious God would ever do such a thing to me. It's like the power goes out right when the best part of a movie is about to happen, never allowing me to see how it ends. The moment when my life is filled with purpose, when the movie just started to make sense, would God, in His infinite wisdom, decide it's time to pull the plug? No sequel? No new season? No "find out on the next episode of Dragon Ball Z"? The show is canceled?

I want to see how it unfolds; I want to see you grow up. God, please keep the plug in. I've just figured out how to make this work. I have no desire to skip ahead.

I want to witness the episode where I hide my tears on your first day of school. I want to be there for the part where the seeds of imposter syndrome start to fester, so I can hold you and remind you that you are enough. I long for that syndicated episode of you coming home every day for the next twenty-something years, telling me how your day went.

I want several season finales. I want to be in the writer's room. I want to cross-check the manuscript myself when it's time for you to deal with the weight and beauty that comes with Blackness. I hope I get to tell you myself that you are fashioned by God in His own likeness; you are fearfully and wonderfully made—just a little less than the angels. I hope that in the episode when you begin to feel down for no apparent reason, I get to press pause, as if this were Hulu, and speak to you like characters breaking the fourth wall. The voice of James Earl Jones or even Morgan Freeman descends, and I say, 'Walk as if your chin is chained to the sun.' Then I press play.

I hope God doesn't press the stop button. This series needs to last longer than any Grey's Anatomy or Game of Thrones (surely, He thinks this show is better than incest and dragons). I need Sesame Street numbers — fifty-four seasons and counting. No, Sesame Street won't. I need a series with as many seasons as Sesame Street, plus a spin-off where I get to see your children grow. I'll even take the commercials.

Contingency Plan

Let's face it, the longest-running Black sitcom, Tyler Perry's House of Payne, only lasted 12 seasons. Before that, The Jeffersons had only 11, while The Cosby Show only lasted eight. The CDC says the average lifespan of a Black man in this country is seventy-one and a half, six and a half years lower than my white counterparts, and it's declining. I'm not a math expert, but based on these numbers, I may have around forty years, more or less, depending on mission control. But let's suppose the show gets canceled prematurely for reasons guided by His wisdom: the contingency plan is already in place - these letters.

These letters, I want you to take them. Whenever you are able to, take each of these letters I write to you as pages from 'Just in Case God Pulled the Plug on me Early and Pressed Stop.' Let these letters serve as my eulogy. Not that boring two, maybe three-page spread you get at funerals printed on cheap paper. There is a permanence to ink that outlives every man’s life. I’m trying to write myself into a future I cannot guarantee I’ll be in. I never cared to be remembered until now.

If I don’t see it through, and the shoe drops, I hope these letters, the email I created for you where all the pictures and unpublished letters go, along with the words of those who knew me, help you understand who your father was at that point in time.

He wasn’t angry, he wasn’t sad, he wasn’t even depressed. At least at this point in his life, he was so full of love that he worried just a bit that he wouldn’t be around to see it all through.

When I die, I hope
that my sons
are too elderly
to carry my coffin.
            -  Shermen Alexie's Life Span

By the way, I love forest green and dandelion yellow.  Don’t put me in avocado suit though. 

Love,

Papa

And if you’re on Substack Notes, please select your favorite line from this letter and hit that“Restack” button.

Let me know your thoughts:

1. I purposely avoided the “D” word throughout this piece. I’m not ready to use it. Do you think about the shoe dropping a lot?

2. What do you want to be remembered for?

3. Do you have cable? What’s your go to streaming services?

4. What show are you watching right now?

5. What should I write to Myles next?

Want more of Myles’ Letters?

• Read why we decided to call him Myles.

• Read about Our first father’s day.

• Or how about one about his father’s hairline or lack thereof.