Dear Monica,

I have started this letter more times than I can count. There's something inside me that says I have to do this.

You may never read it, and that too is on me.

But if you do read it, I am not trying to interfere, in your life.

 

I want you to take a moment and decide... what I have put into this letter, it comes from the deepest part of my heart, and you may not want this.

It’s not scary, or bad .. it’s worst than that ... its truthful.

 

For forty years I kept your letters. I never threw them away. I always knew they were there, but I was afraid to read them again. I think, deep down, I knew they contained truths about me that I didn’t want to face.

Well, this week, I finally opened them.

It felt less like opening old letters and more like opening a vault I had locked away. Every page took me back to the young woman who loved me with honesty, patience, and kindness, and to the young man who simply wasn't mature enough to understand what he had and what he gave up.

I sat, read, As I read, something unexpected happened. I realized I wasn't reading history. I was reading a lesson that had been waiting forty years for me to learn.

There were moments when I had to stop because I couldn't see through the tears. I wasn't crying because I missed being young. I was crying because, for the first time, I truly understood the weight of the hurt I caused you.

There isn't a word big enough or deep enough for "sorry." Not after forty years. I walked away from you, I left you alone.

I have a memory of our last day leaving that house, you standing there. I looked at you and inside something was saying ..’what are you doing?’. Something I will never forget.

 

So .. you know who I married, Jackie. We have 2 grown boys. Matt is 34, B Comm International business, speaks 4 or 5 languages, lives in Hanoi, long hair, music and festival promoter. The apple did not fall far from the tree.

And Jordan, age 32, lives in Vancouver .. deep in the tech world. 6½’ tall and sport nut, like Dad. Him and his girlfriend convinced me years ago to take them skydiving. I ended up with just over a 1000 skydives and it was almost 20 years since I was in a plane. Just search MrKemac on YouTube.

To tell you whats happened in my life was a long boring story, until 2023 when life punched me in the mouth.

We fostered a child about 2010 for almost 2 years. When he was adopted, I was crushed. So to redirect that energy, I bought a guitar. It takes along time for me to absorb things, probably intentionally, but finally when played Margaritaville, it seemed one of the great accomplishments of my life.

Then, 2023 showed up. A very long story short, my neighbour of 30 years, nice guy accident, dead, followed by of my closest aunts a month later, gone. Then Michael MacKinnon, my oldest friend, since we were 4, glioblastoma, given 6 months best. There’s other things but in the middle of all this, I call my closest friend for the last 40 years, Doug Scoones. Spend and hour crying the blues to him about my life, and he listened, ‘I’m sorry buddy’ .. over and over, he listened. And then, ‘I have something to talk to you about bud’ .. “my doctor just gave me my end of life speech’ . We cried together. I miss him so much.

I lost Michael and Doug, 3 months apart. My oldest and closest friends .. gone.

In the middle of all this, alone one night, I picked up my guitar, and with no intention, I wrote a song about growing up, boys, friends. Recorded it to my iPhone, and they managed to play it for Michael in his last hours. He died the following morning at 3am. I couldn’t play the song again but his brother convinced me, my bad guitar playing and even worst voice, to send the song somewhere. Well, I did and someone sent me a recording contract. I never signed it, I just couldn’t.

 

Sept 6 2025 .. on his 60^th birthday, my brother Brian passed away. Alcohol finally got the best of him.

He was the reason that put you and I on separate life paths. I took care of Brian more like he was my kid, than a brother. I felt failure watching him on life support.

 

For 24 months, grief sat on my doorstep. But from all that, something happened. I started writing, creating, anything that came to mind. I poured everything inside me, out. But, I have no close friends now, so paper became my pal, computers were my confidant, silence became my strength.

 

Songs, books, poems .. I’m even playing with a screenplay. I have no idea where this all comes from, but it just poured out of me. And not grief, loss, heart songs, some really great songs. No one told me I could write songs.

Then came the books. More philosophical than just stories. My first book gets published within the next few weeks. Series 1, a kids book, the first of the 4 or 5 I have on the go.

The songs .. some I cannot explain .. some I can. A Liberal living in Alberta can write some very angry stuff, but it’s still a great song.

 

But then came you. Buried in boxes was Kevin’s private box. Pulled it out, held it, I knew what was inside. Opened it slowly, and there on top, one page ...

“I thought I would give you a warm fuzzy for the day” Love you M. Next was a card, with that tiny writing and a recipe for a Mongolian Dingbat ..lol

I knew what I was getting into, it was a bridge I has to cross, but something said it was time .. I didn’t even know what that meant but I started to read one by one.

 

PLEASE ... this is my confession, there is no blaming, no ill will.

When you sent these letters to me, I didn’t know at the time, but I was reading them on the surface only, I didn’t let them get inside me because I guess I knew what they would do to me. Well, they’re inside me now.

I want you to know, there was no failure on your part, nothing. You were and are a very smart, intelligent, thoughtful, beautiful person. I was an immature, kid, I didn’t even know what was good for me. I was so scared of you. You had my heart like no one has ever had it, and that scared me so much. If I let you in, I could never get you out again. Ha.. instead I locked you in a box in my basement.

Well, here’s where it gets interesting. Sitting alone, playing guitar, watching sports, after reading your letters, I started writing .. and writing ... but I never use my words... I used yours. The more I wrote, the more I cried. You wrote a song for me and maybe every woman that ‘just wants a small gesture, hold my hand, just let me know you see me.

Then came your words,  A Kiss Is Like A Smile Kevin, It Doesn’t Cost You Anything” . An arrow to the heart that took 40 years to land. I was crushed.

I don’t know if you have seen this, but at the Golden Globe Awards in 2017, Meryl Streep dedicated an award to her friend Carrie Fisher. She said Carrie used to tell her to “Take your broken heart, and make it into art.”

I never forgot that, and if there was a time for it .. it was now.

I wrote and wrote, I read and re-read. This is not about me, it’s about her, and others. It hurt so much, but I do not deserve or want sympathy. I want the world to know, to feel it.

It does not feel like I wrote this, it feels like you did, I just arranged it.

This song is your voice, your heart, and your love speaking through words that I was finally old enough to hear. I only held the pen. I listen to it every night.

Every line reminds me of something I failed to understand when we were young. The smallest gestures. The quiet moments. The feeling of slowly losing someone you still loved and that someone who loved you.

I wish I had understood those things back then. I wish I had understood you.

Over the years I have accomplished many things. I've built businesses, raised a family, coached kids, and now writing books that I hope will help children grow into kinder adults.

But none of those changes what I found in your letters. They reminded me of my own, careless, immature decisions that impacted other peoples lives. Decisions that became part of someone else's story.

Your words didn't just become a song, I want them to carry forward as a message. I was immature, confused vulnerability with weakness, and I was terrified of how deeply I loved you. I know that now. I didn't know it then. What I would give to have a heart like yours. A heart that freely invites and accepts unconditional love, unwavering affection, a deep connection given freely without boundaries, expectations, or strings attached. It is a gift.

I have just completed book 1, working on books 2, 3 and 4. and many of your words, in many ways, will become part of the philosophy behind my next children's books. Books that teach kindness, empathy, and understanding the weight we sometimes take for granted. Lessons we all should learn from your words.

I'm not writing this letter to ask for anything. I'm not asking you to remember the past, or to change your life in any way. I'm writing because you deserved to know your words mattered. And, if I'm being honest, I'm writing for me too. Maybe it's the Catholic in me. Maybe this is my confession.

Your words and letters survived forty years, and now they became a song. Words you wrote from the heart, maybe will get some young, stupid, immature man, to listen and understand what he has in life. If the song ever touches another person's heart, a part of that belongs to you.

Your heart deserved to be seen then, and it deserves to be seen now. If this song ever helps someone hold on to the person they love, then a part of that belongs to you. Your heart deserves a place on the stage of life. If there was only an award for selfless love!

Thank you for loving an immature young man who didn't know how to receive it.

Thank you for writing letters instead of giving up without a voice. I miss that voice.

And thank you for unknowingly teaching me a lesson that took me forty years to understand.

I sincerely hope life has been kind to you.

With gratitude and respect,

Kevin

Everything you are seeing, and reading on this page, is 100% private and will stay that way.

 

PASS WORD CATected

(I knew you would Remember His Name ) 

 

 

No one has ever seen or read any of your letters to me, I have never shared or spoken about them.

This is your letter to me, and my song to you

 

No one beside you and me have every heard this song so far. 

My song software allows me to do things like this. 

 

Push play .. listen .. and read

 

Once I know you have 'or have not' seen all this

The Website will be removed.

This site is rarely used and not crawled.

I own it and use it for Customer demo's only