Promise not tell your mother about any of this. It’d only upset her.

Throughout his life a man makes a lot of promises. Some he wants to make, some he has to. Whether he keeps those promises depends on the man.

That’s what my father taught me. He kept his promises to the family — working two jobs to keep a roof over our heads ,and food in our stomachs. I hardly saw him until I turned 18, when I started working the same shift he did.

You remember when your grandpa took a real bad fall? Maybe you were too young. Broke almost every bone in his body. Got a terrible infection; wasted away from the inside. We lost him a month later. He died in a hospital bed, with everyone gathered around him. He fought to the end, but kept saying there was no better way to go. I think given the option he’d have rather died in that bed than the mines.

I remember one of the last days, when he was fading in and out, he asked for each of us in turn at his bedside. When I walked in the room, he tilted his head and beckoned me to come closer. He told me how proud he was of me, how he could tell that I knew what a man’s word meant. What it was to keep a promise to the ones you love. I said goodbye to him that afternoon and that was it.

We’re not too much better off than my family was. I work the mines. Your mother’s nerve disease keeps her at home. A lot of the older folks in this town have it. It makes things difficult, but when I feel it getting to me, I just look at the ring on my left hand. In sickness and in health is what I swore. I’m scared to think what would happen to her if she lost me.

That brings us to that time eight years ago, son. You remember how worried you and your mother were? The supervisor knew we weren’t cleared to be down there, but he signed the work order anyway. I remember exactly where I was, near a makeshift break area with a couple hanging lamps. Where they found me.

You’d think I’d have been caught flatfooted when the ground shook and the ceiling came down, but I actually knew a little before that — you usually do, even if it’s too late to do anything. I heard sand raining from cracks in the rock above. Felt the earth rolling under me. I was running for the support beams when it happened.

That first boulder from the ceiling nailed me square in the back, sent me to the dirt floor, pinned me down and broke ribs. Believe it or not it wasn’t the first time I’d been in that situation. I got hit in the chest by a falling beam in my twenties; knocked me to the ground and took the wind right out of me. What I remembered back then, lying there waiting for the guys to find me, was two things: how I was desperate to breathe, but couldn’t; and the pounding of my heart. Like it was trying to pound right out of my chest and run for help on its own.

So I lied there, pinned between my shoulder blades to the hard ground. Wind knocked out of me, and I’m clawing for breath, scared as all get out. But that time it was different, son. My heart wasn’t pounding. I felt it beat so soft and slow.

After a few seconds, the ground wasn’t shaking anymore. Everything stood still and quiet, the only sound the muffled shouts of men in other corridors. I couldn’t feel my heart beating. I was so afraid.

I tensed and clenched my insides, just drew everything in, tried to shout. My busted ribs dug into my guts, my lungs — I couldn’t get a breath. I thought about you and your mother. I felt the world getting dark and hazy, couldn’t think straight anymore, could barely see. But I saw your faces, in my mind. I was saying goodbye to you.

In my last little gasp of consciousness, I thought about my father, and wondered if that was what it was like for him. Lord help me, son, I don’t know if Dad was with me in that moment, but I got angry. Angrier than I’ve ever been. Angry at fate, at God, taking me from my family, leaving them all alone. “I made it easy on you. You’re already buried.” Your poor mother. I didn’t want to hear I’d died a quarter-mile deep in the dark earth.

Son, I planted my hands on the ground in front of me and pushed. I pushed through the pain, lifted my body off the ground with the hardest damn push-up of my life, practically tore my arms from their sockets doing it, that rock still laying on my back and everything. All I could think about was your mother.

I never told anyone. But I didn’t see a doctor after the rescue. Somehow I didn’t think they’d understand what happened down there. And every night since, I lie down next to your mother and listen to her breathing. I just lie there like that, until morning.

I haven’t slept since that day. I don’t let myself. And I don’t mean I have nightmares, or toss and turn. I don’t sleep anymore.

Because my heart doesn’t beat, son. I never found a pulse. And the only time I breathe in now is to talk. I can’t explain it.

And you know what, I don’t want to. Because this is a gift. I pull double-shifts at the mine now — I know you haven’t seen a lot of me lately. But to be honest I’m not looking so good. I don’t move as fast as I used to. I kind of have to keep to myself a lot of the time because of what other guys say. I come home when I know you and your mom are asleep. When it’s dark, like it is down there.

But I get my work done, punch out, and I know you and your mother can have warm clothes in the winter, a roof that doesn’t leak, three meals a day. I don’t even eat now.

Sometimes I feel… tired isn’t the word. I feel slow, like something is pulling at me, like something wants me to stop. Oh, and it makes me angry. The same kind of angry I got in the mine, an anger that makes me fight. I think about you and your mother, and what my father said. I don’t get as angry anymore, because it’s been a long time, but maybe one day I’ll just let that slow feeling roll over me and that’ll be it.

But for now, don’t you worry your mother, and don’t worry yourself. Just know you mean  everything to me. And I made you too many promises to break them by leaving.

A man keeps his promises. Remember that.