From A Father To A Son

Julian,

You do not know how much I regret that I was not there. I wanted so much to be, but I had a dreadful fear that I would not be a good example, that I would lead you into things that would do you more harm than good. You cannot understand what the fame does to someone. It eats at you, tears at you. You try so hard to obtain it and then when you get it what you want most is to be rid of it.

You cannot understand how hard it is to reach the souls of millions but to be unable to communicate with those you love the most. That every time you try to make them understand how much you care about them and how much you care about the person you have come to love it all falls apart and you can't make them understand that you really, really do care, but you can't get through those barriers that the fame has put up around you. You can't be the person you want to be, because you have to be what everyone else expects you to be. Somewhere you gets lost in the fame, and it's the public perception that remains, and it literally drives you crazy. You want to find yourself, but you can only find what the public wants to see. And you try to escape for a few moments with chemicals of some kind so that for a while you don't have to think about what you have to be.

My greatest wish would be to hear you say "Though my dad wasn't with me much, I think he was the greatest! I think he did a lot for the world, that he cared about everyone around him." But I understand if you can't because I know the cause of the barriers between us. But I wish you would not hate what I had come to love so much, the person I had come to love so much. Because you do not understand how important that person was to me, how that person gave me what little contact with reality that I had. What that person did, what that person sacrificed to get me as far as I got. You will never understand, no one will ever understand how much that person gave me.

I understand the bitterness, I understand the resentment, but I so much wish you could open your heart and forgive, forgive a father, and understand the terrible needs that he had, and the terrible forces that drove him. I was beginning to change before my life ended. One of the things that was disturbing me was the distance between us. I think if I had lived I would have found a way to build bridges to cross those distances. I am SURE I would have! Because of what has happened to me here, and what I am involved in now, I know how I would have been able to change if I had had a few more years.

I could go on and on. I could say the same things over and over again, but that would do no good. What I will say is this... I love you. I have always loved you, I will always love you. Not just because I am your father, but because of the person that you have become. I wish I could have told you when I lived how proud I am of you! But I will tell you now, and I hope you will believe that it comes from me. If I was alive I would be proud to say "That's my boy!"

I also love all my children, and wish for them the very best, and pray that they do not get swallowed up in the fame as I got swallowed up in it, and, all of those around me. I cannot explain to you what has happened to me here. But I have learned to use that fame for a purpose, and that has filled me with a joy that I cannot explain to anyone. But what I would like the most is to remember you. But that has been taken away from me by the chemicals that I used in my lifetime. But those joyous moments when I do have a memory, when for a brief instant I touch you again, are the most precious moments that I possess!

Yours In Good Will And Love, Forever,

Your Father,