Hypothetical Letter from Whitman to a Potential Love Interest

Dearly Beloved,

As I find myself at the end of my last chapter, my mind cannot help but reminisce in all that I have written in this book called life. I have asked myself the question, have I lived life to the fullest, celebrating all of my triumphs, yet mourning all of my defeats? At the end, will I be able to look up and say the gods, if they exist, are shining down on me and welcoming me to the eternal sunset? One can only hope this is the case, that one’s life meant something in the long run, not just in fleeting moments of happiness amidst all of the sorrow.

My heart yearns for the day I can feel your touch for one last time. Looking back at all I have done, I can say that my biggest triumph--was you. The days I spent with you felt as though time came to a halt, yet that time could not go by slow enough. I remember the warm summer days after the civil war, when we sat below the willow tree at my estate in New Jersey. I read you my poems, recited them with a burning passion that only you could bring out in me. You are the reason I could bring myself to release my work out into the world, as when I was most skeptical and found myself my own worst critic, you took my head in between your warm, loving hands and told me to have faith in myself. Even at those points where our lives took us in different directions for years at a time, our love never dwindled, for there has not been one day throughout all of this where I have not thought of you.

Yet, after all of this reflection, my one true regret is that I never celebrated my greatest triumph, you. So many years we spent hiding, making sure that we displayed our love only in private, I could never feel the gaze of others looking in disgust yet intrigue, as we embrace in the park for all to watch. I would have loved to parade our love around as a trophy, but tragically we have found ourselves stuck in times where we could not even fully embrace our kin because of the color of our skin, let alone believe people can accept love as love. Nonetheless, I will leave this Earth knowing that someday, however far away, our love will be celebrated as we wanted it to be, for what it was, a symphony of passion, yet strife. Disagreement, yet reconciliation. As we saw many summers ago, the country can change, the people have it in their hearts to love each other because of our differences and most importantly because of the one thing we all share, our humanity.

As I write this last letter to you, I hope I will see you once more before I face my final pages. I want you to know that all of my poems were written with you in mind. You were my inspiration, my muse, my reason for being. I write this for you knowing you understand the extent my love for you reaches, as well as my regrets for never tying you down. However, I know that despite our love coming to, in my eyes, a fulfilling end, we still yearn for more of what once was, so I leave you with this: the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

Your Love,

Walt.

IB Learner Skill - Caring

Through this letter, I tried to imagine a potential "love story" between one of history's most famous poets and someone who he loved throughout his whole life, but never could be with due to his own beliefs and the context at the time. I feel that this work falls under the skill of caring, as I had to write as if I was in love with someone I never knew.

Which feelings or memories do I remember while thinking about the evidence?

Whenever I write, I like to really put myself into the shoes of the characters I'm writing about in order to express the emotions I feel the characters themselves are feeling, drawing from my own personal experiences. Because of this, while writing this letter, I felt sad about this relationship never working out, even though it never existed.

How can this particular evidence help me in the future?

Writing things like this serve as great practice for any stories I might write in the future. It is always important to put yourself in different scenarios in order to fully understand the situation you are writing about, so I think putting myself in a situation like this helps me to create more genuine projects.