A letter to Leah Still’s eyes, in answer to their question

Dear Leah,

Please forgive the adults. We mean well, but we are all crazy.

I saw you last week, looking terribly confused at the football game after the ceremony involving you, your dad and 60,000 screaming grownups. When you ran to your grandmother, she explained that all the people were here "because they love you."

Leah, you know and I know that your grandmother was telling a little fib. Sixty thousand people didn't pay hundreds of dollars to come to that stadium because they love you. They came to watch a football game! And how could they love you, right? They don't even know you!

But they do love someone. They love their parents. They love their wives or husbands. They love their own kids. And they think about the person they love being in danger of death—or having died already—when they see your gorgeous face. And when they see your dear father (who does not know how to protect you from all this confusion), they see themselves.

So even if they don't love you, they think they love you. And they think if they cheer for you enough, you will live and if you live, it will stop death from coming for everybody. And that's why they were cheering like that, and freaking you out, and why they didn't think about how scary and weird that must have been for a little girl.

By the time you get to be a grownup—and I sincerely, deeply and selfishly hope you get to be a grownup—you'll understand that all these people are crazy because they've been driven crazy, by the mounting terror that comes from a life full of love and death.

And you'll be crazy like that too. And we'll all be crazy together!

I know it doesn't make any sense now. But it will, someday. I promise.

Love,

A Grownup

P.S. Leah, by the time you're a grownup, you'll also understand about creepy media people who would have exploited the baby Jesus in the manger if they thought it would help their Christmas ratings. I'll make sure I'm still around too, so you and me and your old man can have a good laugh about those cocksuckers!