Don’t nobody say nothing again until Charlotte point to Paris. “Since you the oldest, why don’t you go first?”

“Okay, I will,” Paris say, and put on some glasses. I didn’t know she wore glasses.

“Dear Charlotte:

“I hope you ain’t still mad at me cause I ain’t mad at you. It ain’t gon’ take me all day to say what I gotta say, so please pay attention. All my life I tried to show each one of you that I loved you. I did it the best way I knew how but sometimes as a parent it’s hard to tell when one child might need a little more attention and affection than the other ones. Trying to keep four kids and a husband happy, warm, full and clean, sometimes you don’t notice which one that is. That’s what happened to you. I didn’t notice, and it just dawned on me that that’s all you been trying to do with all your theatrics and what have you, is to get me to notice. I understand it now, and hope it ain’t too late to say I always noticed everything about you, and I’m just sorry for not letting you know it, and just how much joy you brought me. Charlotte, I’m sorry if I didn’t make you feel like you was something special, cause you was. Your light always shined bright but I guess since we had ‘four’ lights glowing at the same time, sometimes it felt like y’all was just one big bulb. But do me a favor, don’t take it out on your sisters and brother, cause it ain’t they fault. And especially Paris. It was me who put her on that pedestal, but it was pure selfishness on my part cause I needed her to help me with y’all littler ones. I’m sorry if doing this made you feel like you didn’t measure up to her but you did, Charlotte. And still do. If I could go back and do this all over again I would hug you a little more, kiss you more, let you sit on my lap as long as you wanted to and pay attention to every word of your long boring book reports. (smile) I’d listen to you take all day to memorize your five-line Easter piece. I’d watch you do the hop-skip-and-jump a million times if that’s what it would take for you to know what a amazing child you was. But I can’t go back, Charlotte. So for now on please try to understand that you been getting mad at the wrong folks. Ain’t nobody in this family trying to hurt you. Nobody. So soften up a little bit. Let the sweet part of you come back out and share it. Please stop cussing so much. Of course you got it from me but it don’t become you and it didn’t become me. I also wanna apologize for talking like I wasn’t educated, but I wasn’t. Please teach my granddaughters how to act like young ladies and make them go to college. And get Monique off that damn medicine cause that stuff ain’t doing nothing but messing—”