i wish you had written me a letter i wish you had told me before before your mind was too old cause i would have liked to have known you better like my daughter knows me now i would have liked some answers i would have liked some answers but now no one can say what it meant to see your daddy die under that tractor on that black hill how you painted your pretty face and did your hair each day before you my fetched my father s pills you could have done a few things better you didn t have to be so strong you might have been the answer you might have been the answer but now no one can say how we would ve all turned out if you had told it like you saw it you knew how to smile to keep the rest from finding out what was hanging in our closet we still say that you re closer to jesus than anyone we ve ever known oh what a cross to carry cause you did everything to please us and now you re sitting in a home i bet you d like some answers i bet you d like some answers but now no one can sing the third verse of that hymn you played on that old organ in the parlor but if you let me i d fill your ears with all the love you gave and then you d ask me how i knew her oh i like to think that i did because each day she seems a little closer in the mirror but we all know you re gone and no one really knows you now did you not want us to remember