Reap What You Sow” is the way to get your life back. You won’t go hungry. “Famine,” you say. “Famine is a strong word,” you reply. What a joke! The famine was caused by you, not the other way around. For the same reason that people who are fat are always complaining about their weight, you created your own poverty and your own lack of money with your attitudes. The same thing happened to you that happens to people who get married young. “I love my husband!” you say. “I love my husband!” you say. “I love my husband,” you say as you watch his body withering into nothingness right before your eyes. When it’s too late, you realize you never loved that man, not even after you went through nine months of pregnancy or nine years of marriage, yet you stayed with that man because you were “in love” and “in love” is a wonderful illusion, especially if it happens after a pregnancy or marriage. Look at you. Here is your belly, your flabby chest, your big thighs. That is the man I hate and love and hate. He is a fat ghost and you hate him because he never was able to control his life. He is a living being who died too young and in pain and he is trying to make you pay for it by punishing you for not being a good wife. You are a victim of your own actions. You are like a man who drinks a lot of liquor and falls asleep on the street in winter and he wakes up and finds himself frozen to death. He is alive but he has frozen to death by his own actions. He has gotten what he wanted, to be warm. To sleep, to be warm. To be warm, to sleep, to be warm. That’s how I feel about you. You don’t have any dignity or honor left in your life, no courage. It’s all gone. You used to be a fat man who was confident in his actions and proud of himself. Now you’re like a fat man who was confident and proud in his former life but now is ashamed and humiliated. I’m so happy you’re alive, so happy you’re still walking around even though you think I’m such a great hater. I’ll take that if nothing else. You have so much hatred inside you that you can do nothing with it. You tried getting back at me for having a daughter instead of a son. It makes me feel bad when I think about that. I think about the day your fat wife screamed at me when we’d only been married for three months. You always thought I gave birth to my son on purpose because I wanted to make a joke of my childbirth certificate and I never told you the truth about it. You took me to the hospital the day before I had my son. I’d already made up my mind to go, but when I told you this you thought I was joking. “No,” I said. “I am not joking.” We went to the hospital that day, and as soon as I said I was in labor you gave birth to a great idea: “I’m going to tell them you ate some bad food. I’ll tell them that you’re a spoiled woman, that you can’t control your appetite.” You had this great strategy that day. You felt so clever and the truth is, it wasn’t even that great a strategy. The truth is, it was too late, but you just didn’t want me to have that great prize, you. Even though you had more than enough money to have it if you wanted it. That’s your wife you are seeing now. She is the real me. If she hates me so much then how could she love herself. You still cannot face me? How stupid of you. I gave birth to your son and then I gave birth to you! You think you can tell me what to do? No! You may be the father of my husband, but you’ll never be the father of my child. No one has the right to talk about my daughter, not even her father. Don’t even try! You’ve already failed. I remember when you were an adolescent, my son. Every time you tried to be a little independent I reminded you that it was too early in the day to go out and play and that it was still cold outside and that if you went outside to play there was the chance that you’d fall and hurt yourself. I also tried to be nice about it, saying that one day you’d grow up and that at that time, you’d be able to go out alone. But it was never possible. You never went alone to play. And yet, I always encouraged you. I had my own needs and desires and I would always make your life a little difficult in order to teach you discipline, maturity, and self-reliance. So I guess I’m responsible for your not being able to take care of yourself now. Do you see that? You can blame me, but there was nothing I could do about it. I really am a wonderful woman, because when I decided I wanted to lose my baby weight I didn’t complain about how heavy the scales were. I didn’t complain about the pain of the cramps, and I didn’t complain about the cramps after the baby was born. That’s when I really suffered because I had to sit down on the toilet and be patient as my body expelled every ounce of blood from my body. In those three months I learned self-control. That’s why I was able to hold my child like this in my hands and show him that he has nothing to fear. “You’re fine, my little one. You’re fine.” What could be more wonderful than that? To have given birth, and yet, to see your face appear in the mirror when you see how your face changes to the delight of all who see you. You don’t deserve that, but I guess you won’t be able to get it because it’s too late. You are the man who will never be able to see his own face or his own son’s face in the mirror. And now I’m looking at you as you’re eating alone and I see your flabby chest, your flabby hands. I see your fat face in the mirror. You can make fun of me all you want but you are now the man I hate, and I do not want to look at you anymore, not even through the hole that is your mouth. This letter is the last you will get from me, so I’ll write it as clearly as I can. You’ll never see this letter but at least you’ll be able to read it when you’re in prison or on the battlefield. A lot of things can happen to people in prison and on the battlefield. “I didn’t know anything about his death,” you’ll say. “How could I have known? My son, whom I loved and did my best to help in every way I could, was arrested for not having a working permit for that city. He had been working illegally there for nine years, and because of that, he never wrote to me or even called me to ask for help. Because of him, I became poor. He gave me a bad name. He robbed me of everything. My reputation was ruined because of him. If I’d known he was going to die that way, I would have done anything to stop him. He was my only son and I miss him so much.” People make all kinds of excuses for their poor decisions. As you become more and more old and lonely, as you feel more and more helpless, you’ll have even less patience for people who do terrible things to their families, because it’s just too late, there’s nothing anyone can do. It’s too late. Nothing to do but get older and more cruel. When your mind is lost in the blackness of remorse, it’s time to think of yourself and see how awful it is to lose a son. You’ll cry and you’ll beat your head against the wall until your head is one big, blistered, tender wound. Then your eyes will fill up with tears, and in your mind you’ll say the one thing that you hate: “My life is ruined. My life is ruined.” This is the lesson you’ve learned, and every time you’ll feel remorse and misery, you’ll realize it’s too late for all of us to change. You’ll feel that even the sky is cruel to you.