I'm not sure how long it will actually be, but I might be writing for a while. Maybe not too long.

Like I said, "L" and I were great friends for many years. I mean, when you saw him, you could usually expect to see me and visa versa. We did literally everything together and it was wonderful. Even when he got older and started to get interested in girls more and more, and hanging out with his peers, we were still very close. Sometimes it was kind of awkward when he would ask me advise about girls and I had to struggle through it, but our friendship was never an issue. He was like a son to me and I was very much like a father or older brother or uncle. The big hugs didn't happen as often, if at all, when he got to be around 16, but the love was still there. Oh, ok, there were still a few hugs, just not as many; which was sad, I think.

Anyway, one of the things we did together when he got older was we started a blues/rock band along with my brother who played drums. I played guitar and "L" picked up bass guitar; it was really cool and fun, believe me. I bought him his first AND second electric bass and a nice amplifier too. We actually started to sound pretty good after about a year or so of jamming and fooling around. But then my brother and I decided to move to a different state. "L" was only 18 but decided to move along with us. It was trully a huge thing for him because he had never been that far away from his mom for such a long time before. Well, when we moved to where I now live, things between my brother and I got worse than they were where we previously lived. He had been living with me and he (my brother) had a real bad habit of wanting to fight with me all the time. Unfortunately I started drinking, which made things a lot worse. I am a recovering alcoholic. One morning I got up and started drinking and my brother came over and started in on me. It was kind of like the straw that broke the camel's back for me. He threatened to bash me over the head with one of my guitars and so, in my booze-addled state, I decided to beat him to the punce, so to speak. I picked up a rather large knife and stabbed him in the chest with it. Needless to say I went to jail, he went to the hospital, and "L" moved back to his home state.

I know that my brothers said some things to "L" which were about me and my relationship with him and that were really nasty. That was one of the big reasons why he moved. I don't know how he felt about me, but I can imagine all kinds of bad things after what they may have said to him. I don't know. I was never, EVER bad to him, not even durring the brief period of time I went back to the bottle. Only my brother had the means to bring out that kind of evil in me. But I know he had never seen me do anything like I did to my brother that day, either. That's because I had never done anything like that before then. What a horrible mistake I made. In a way I have been paying for it ever since that day with "L" moving way away from where I live, and my family not having anything to do with me. Actually, things are a little bit better with a couple members of my family now, but "L" is still gone. I have no idea where he now lives and the only way I can ever find him again, I think, would be to hire someone to find him.

He know's where I live, though, so my prayers now are that maybe some day he will decide to come look me up. Believe me, I keep that in my prayers. I have all my great memories of him locked away in my heart, so I will never forget him, but I would dearly love to see him again. I love him, I love my family, for that matter, and would never, ever want to hurt him or anyone. I have been sober ever since that horrible day, eight years ago, and with God's grace I will be till the day I die. I just hope to maybe see "L" before I do.

With Love,
Chris