Love of My Life,

Firstly, I would like to say, that I think you overreacted. I’m just saying. Whether I was wrong or not, to throw me out and not allow me to see my child seems like an overreaction. That’s all I’ll say about that.

Now, I am willing to acknowledge that I may have been in the wrong. Ok, I was wrong. I understand now why you would feel the way you did, and I now realize what I did was not….right.

It was weird.

And I know that now! I thought about it for a few days, and then, wham! It hit me! I suddenly saw the entire situation from your point of view. And I saw that it was weird.

It was weird of me to make those dress shoes for our newborn child.

Really weird.

But just for a second, if you wouldn’t mind, try to see it from my perspective.

I’ve never made any type of shoe before in my life. I spend weeks during your pregnancy whittling down in the basement, working with real leather (which by the way is really hard), having to cut all the dimensions for normal shoes by more than 5 times to get them baby-sized. After weeks and weeks, I finally come out with these beautiful dress-shoes for Jack. And what do I get in return? Thrown out of the house.

Again, I now understand why you saw it as weird, and I apologize.

And no, I don’t know what occasion I thought our new born baby would need dress shoes for. I know it’s not customary in this culture for newborn babies to wear dress shoes. I realize that it was weird for me to do, and I just want to come home and see you and the kids.

I must ask though. Was it really necessary to call my mother? Because here’s what happened. She called my grandmother. And I spent 6 hours on Saturday apologizing to a 96 year-old woman with dementia for making dress shoes for my baby. “You used to be such a normal boy” oh come on Grandma it’s a PAIR OF SHOES GOD DAMMIT!

And boy is word spreading. I went to the laundromat to pick up my suits on Monday, and the guy behind the counter says to me “Do you have any baby suits to drop off?” First of all, the idea of putting a baby in a suit is absolutely ridiculous, but more importantly how the hell did Ricky from the laundromat find out about this? Are you telling everyone?! Jesus Christ, Marie.

Oh why did I ever make those dress shoes? Why have I placed this scarlet letter (the letter being a metaphor for my face which is locally known for making homemade baby dress shoes) upon myself?! If I could go back in time, the only thing I would do is go down into the basement 6 weeks ago and tell myself:

“Look Dean. I know you think this is a cool idea right now, and that it would be totally sick if your newborn baby had dress shoes. But it’s really weird…. apparently”

WHY THE HELL DID YOU TELL RICKY FROM THE LAUNDROMAT?!?!?

I’m sorry, it’s just been a frustrating week for me. I know you were right in the first place. I never should have made those shoes. It was weird. I was weird for doing it. You, your sister, Hal the grocer, my mother, my grandmother, Ricky, and Bono were all right. It was a very weird thing to do. I just want to see my child, that’s all. So I’m sorry for making the shoes.

…But I maintain that the top hat was awesome.

-Dean