Willy Lowman Suicide Note:

I’ve spent my life running. Never thought it, no, I had it in me that to get ahead in life you
need a few very simple tools; a smile and a shoeshine’s all. Little bit of personality and smile
from Lady Luck and you’re set. In fact, I was running so hard, I didn’t know I was running at
all. Took me a little while to see it, little while for me to get a handle of it, but the truth is, I
wasn’t running after nothing. I was running from. I was hiding from who I was, what I’d
always been. Plain and simple, I’m a failure.

Happy, I’m sorry I never gave you more attention. You were worth more than second best I
never treated you like it. I’m proud of you, buddy. I wish I never told you the things that
made you feel so alone in life. I’ve spent too long feeling alone to let you feel the same.
That’s what you’re meant to do with kids. You take care of them so that they don’t make the
same mistakes you do. I couldn’t even manage to try.

Biff, you’re a good kid. And I’m sorry you couldn’t be better for it. I’m sorry I blamed you
for my failures and put you on a pedestal that you didn’t need. I wish I could’ve been a better
father to you. I admit it, I messed you up, I was no good at being a father. Son. My son. You
deserved so much better. If I could go back to that day, the day I really let you down, I’d go
back. I’d go back to that day and shake myself straight and kick my head in for how stupid I
was. I’d be too late to save myself, it’d been late for a long, long time, but hell, maybe I’d
have been able to save you. Nothing will happen again. I can promise you that.

And Linda. Lovely, strong, dependable Linda. My support and my anchor and my ecosystem.
I hurt you and you didn’t even know it. All you did was give me love and patience and
kindness and I couldn’t see past my own head to appreciate you. ‘To love and to cherish, till
death do us part’, that’s right, isn’t it? Maybe I wasn’t able to love in cherish in life, I’m a
little late. But I’ll do my damned that I can love and cherish in everything after.

I’m sick of running. I’m outta breath. I gotta look back behind me and see the mess that I’ve
made, the person I am. I always wanted to be a salesman. A salesman dies a salesman’s
death. I owe it, I owe it to myself to die a salesman’s death, to sell my last earthly possession.
Worth a whole $20,000. I’ve held onto it for sixty-three years now. It’s time for me to let it
go. It’s time for me to go.