Some truths are painful, but that doesn’t mean they should be rewritten.

Imagine losing someone you love and cherishing the final words they left behind, only for someone else to try and change them to ease their own guilt.

Would you go along with the lie for the sake of others?

Or would you protect those last words?

In today’s story, one teen faces this very dilemma when his father asks him to change a letter from his late brother to appease his half-siblings.

Here’s how it went down.

AITA for not letting my dad copy my brother’s letter to me so my half siblings can think he wrote to them too?

My older brother Jamie passed 7 months ago.

He was 20. Before he passed, he wrote a letter for me and another for our dad.

His letter to me was him apologizing for leaving, saying he loved me, he wanted me to have a good life and things like that.

Dad’s letter was different.

Jamie’s letter to their dad was not so pleasant.

Jamie told Dad we always knew he cheated on our mom, that he was disgusted to be his son, that he didn’t tell him he was sick because he didn’t want dad to fake grieve him like he did our mom, he didn’t want dad’s tears or anguish.

He also told him that he felt like Dad not getting the chance to say goodbye was justice for his affair, his affair child, and for what he put the two of us through when we were so young and losing our mom.

I only know the content of Dad’s letter because he told me about it and wanted to see if I felt similar in any way, and I told him I did.

The dad created a toxic environment.

My dad had other kids with his wife, the affair partner (or one of them?).

My half-sisters are 11 and 10, and my half-brother is 8.

I’m 17M because I know I didn’t mention that.

The timeline was that Mom had been sick for about a year.

She passed when I was 5, and my brother was 8.

Dad was a dad again only 6 months after that, and his wife was living with us before that point.

Dad never explained it to us.

He relied on us being young, and boys, and not knowing enough about pregnancy to realize.

My brother always kept his distance from our half-siblings, and he wanted no part of being their brother.

I feel similarly, but I’ll try to be nice because we live in the same house.

But now that Jamie’s gone, I feel like I lost my only sibling, and I don’t love or care about my half-siblings or think of them as real siblings.

That might be why I’m resisting here, but anyway.

Dad knows I have a letter from Jamie.

But Jamie didn’t write anything to our half-siblings.

According to the dad, the younger siblings shouldn’t be punished.

So, Dad wants to make a copy of the letter and make it look like it’s to all of us (so edit it).

He said ever since the girls found out I got one, they’ve been upset, and they grieve for Jamie too, and they don’t deserve the weight of being unloved by their brother and knowing they’ll never get to have a kind message from Jamie.

He said Jamie never said I love you to them or hugged them or gave them any of his heart.

And it’s not their fault.

But some of the pain can be eased if they think he thought of them.

He said we’ll just say I was being possessive of the letter and it was never just mine.

I didn’t agree to share the letter and I told dad I don’t want him to edit it.

He got really mad at me and asked me how I could have such a small age gap between me and my half-sister, how I could live with them for 11 years and not want to save them from this.

He asked me if I had become such a monster.

AITA?

The dad sounds like something else.

Let’s see what the readers over at Reddit have to say about him.

This person sums it up pretty well.

So true!

As this person points out, the father never learns.

Great advice.

He shouldn’t share the letter.

It was intended for him, and that’s the end of the story.

If you liked this post, you might want to read this story about a teacher who taught the school’s administration a lesson after they made a sick kid take a final exam.