Dear Father,

To the one who will never read this. And a letter that will never be sent.

On April 14th, 1865 the president died. Correction, on April 14th, 1865 the president was shot. He hunched forward for a moment, then tipped over and dropped out of his seat. I stared as a man unknown to me jumped over the balcony and onto the floor where I heard a sickening crunch. I stared, shocked as he hobbled out a side entrance and out of Ford’s Theater, Washington DC. The commotion after that seemed jostling but inevitable, as half the people didn’t know what had happened and the other half were mortified by what they had seen. But what shocked me the most was not one of us went after the man. All of us just sat there for a second, perplexed in our own minds, unbeknownst to us that this was very real. So very real.

Looking back, I didn’t see it, but I heard it. That sharp ring in the back of your ear. I remember turning around. The scene that invoked so much laughter that you could barely hear that ringing. Still laughing and smiling at the scene that went by, lost in my own world of happiness. But then I saw Lincoln hunched and then the man behind him. And I remember that man’s face, his eyes wide open in delight. His face contorted into something that made him seem insane. A giddiness. And the ringing of the bullet that I simply could not seem to get out of my ear consumed me.

I wondered with such disgust, was this the cost of war, pain and bloodshed, all to lead into nothing. How could I have supported this? How could I think it was worth it? While I stood aside, were people like me tools for war? This suffering and grief that I felt now, was a cost too great to bear, and the first loss that I had really witnessed allowed me to see this. I finally understood. War accomplishes nothing but devastation. 

Sincerely 

     A daughter that will never be heard.