This is a letter that I wrote to my wife, Pandora. It was written with the intent of waking her up to what I saw as the problems and consequences associated with her excessive consumption of alcohol. Although I made a comment in this letter to the contrary, I did not want Pandora to die. In fact, on three separate occasions in January 2003, she stopped breathing and I revived her. The third time I brought her back to life, she got very angry with me and said, "Next time, just let me die". I told her then that I would never allow that to happen as long as I was capable of preventing it from happening. I'm sad to say that nothing I tried before or after writing this letter helped, and on February 4, 2003, Pandora was found dead in our kitchen by a close friend while I was in the hospital being treated for a nervous breakdown. According to the report, she was surrounded by no less than seven empty bottles of whiskey. For reasons that are still unclear to me, the coroner classified her death as "natural". Personally, I believe she drank herself to death, which in my book spells premeditated suicide.

Pandora,

Don't be surprised if I don't count on you to follow through with anything you say you're going to do. Over the last 25 days you've said you were going to do eleven things with me or for me and I ended up doing them by myself. Six times you said you would fix dinner and I ended up eating leftovers or not eating at all. Three times you said you were going shopping with me and I ended up doing the shopping by myself. Two times you said you would clean up the messes made by your eight pets. I ended up doing all the work.

Your claim that, "This is a bad time of the year for me", has turned into a lousy excuse for excessive drinking that now includes virtually every moment of the year. For the record, you consumed 122 - 1.75 liter bottles of whiskey in one year. That equates to about one bottle every three days, and that doesn't include any of the other alcohol you consumed with me, i.e., champagne, vodka, rum, beer, or wine.

I'm writing all of this down because you will die of either alcohol poisoning or liver failure within the next year if you continue to be abusive to your body. I also want it to be known that I attempted, on numerous occasions, to alert you to the fact that you were abusing a drug, and that in every instance you threatened to do some harm to me if I didn't continue supplying you with alcohol.

I have now reached the point where I'm actually hoping that you will kill yourself by being abusive to your body. You do not eat right, you do not sleep right, and you drink excessively every single day of the year. I know it is going to catch up with you sooner or later, and I want it to be known that I saw the 'hand-writing on the wall' long before you died. I also want it to be known that I brought all of this to your attention as of today (01-12-02) and that you only got angry with me for stating the obvious.

Printed for you on this date January 13, 2002.

With a mixed emotions of love and hate,

John