P.S. I’m eating more. I’ve gained threepoundsback.
P.P.S While I’ve been busy coming back from the brink of death, I started signing up for this dating website. I haven’t hit publish on my profile, but I will soon. Babysteps.
P.P.P.S. Sorry for being such a Debbie Downer thise-mail.
* * *
From:[email protected]
Date: February 14, 2009 4:17a.m.
Subject: We’ll gowiththat.
Ruby,
You know your heart is the most important part of your body, don’t you? I get why you didn’t want to tell me, but I’m not going to treat you any different. Mostly :] I get your family being overprotective even more now. Your grandma dying from a heart problem doesn’t help anything either. What kind of surgery did you have tofixit?
Were you faking being sick when you were a kid and that’s why she made you go to school? Or did you genuinelyfeelbad?
I got this feeling I’d miss your e-mails even if I wasn’t ondeployment.
No, you never forget where you are with Apaches flying overhead at all hours oftheday.
I hope you don’t have to ask them for money, but I’m glad you have people you can reach out to for it. About your aunt… didn’t you tell me that she used to make those wedding dresses herself? Why didn’t she work on them while you were sick? I don’t know anything about the dress industry, but I know if someone couldn’t come into work at my dad’s business, he would pitch in. Don’t let her get to you. It sounds like she made a bad decision and wants to blame you for it. She isn’t worth crying over, Ru. Some people you can never make happy no matter how hardyoutry.
My first time in Iraq, they made us take anti-malaria pills that gave everybody messed-up dreams and constipation. Now they figured out it isn’t a big deal here, so we’re good. Mosquitoes are justannoying.
Both my friends e-mail me once a week. Not as much as you do. It’s more of them just making sure I’m alive than wanting to talk. Not like our e-mails.
If you think you’re eating enough, you probably stillaren’t.
What site did you sign up for? What’s yourprofilelike?
I haven’t heard anything more about my R&R leaveagain….
-Aaron
P.S. For real though, don’t cry over your aunt’s BS, all right? You didn’t do anythingwrong.
* * *
From:[email protected]
Date: February 15, 2009 10:55p.m.
Subject:Friends
Aaron,
I know how important my heart is, smarty pants. Everyone else freaked out so much over the diagnosis, I couldn’t. Do you know what I mean? I’ll never forget hearing my mom crying in her bedroom or my older brother, Seb, blubbering to Jonathan (marine) about it in the kitchen while I eavesdropped. My dad flew to Houston right afterward, even though there wasn’t anything he could do about it. I felt so guilty over it. The surgery I had is a procedure called a catheter ablation. It’s with wires that are called catheters, with electrodes at the tip of each. They traveled through a vein into my heart and the electrodes emitted a radio wave that created heat and destroyed the extra tissue that caused the problems. I wasn’t even technically asleep during it, and I got to go home the next day. :) See? It wasn’tthatbad.
I didn’t fake being sick, thank you very much. That was both my brothers, lol. I was the good kid who neverdidthat.
For the record, I’d miss our e-mailstoo.
