When Jun and Jay are children, they write letters to one another. Though Jay eventually stops responding, he saves these letters, which come to represent his memory of Jun. In the letters, Jun shares his hopes, fears, and frustrations about his family and the political climate in the Philippines. When Jay travels to the Philippines, he takes the letters along, but they’re stolen from his bag when he arrives. He at first believes the culprit is his uncle, Tito Maning, but he can’t understand why Tito Maning would want the letters—he’s a police chief, and Jay suspects that he may have been involved in Jun’s death, but the letters wouldn’t have anything to do with that. Still, the letters do reflect Jun as a person, which would complicate Tito Maning’s job and conflict with his image of Jun as a drug addict.
Later, however, Jay discovers that Jun’s sister, Grace, stole the letters. The family had been trying to forget about Jun, never mentioning him. The letters helped Grace remember her brother and served as a physical reminder of his life, making him “alive again in a way.” This memory becomes more complicated once Jay and Grace learn that Jun was, in fact, a drug dealer, which they hadn’t previously believed. This means that Jay wasn’t necessarily the pure soul they remember. The letters take on a new meaning: they reflect Jun as he really was, not as they saw him or as others remember him. Through the letters, Jun becomes “alive again” in an entirely new way—if anything, Jay and Grace understand and see Jun more clearly now than they did when he was alive.
The Letters Quotes in Patron Saints of Nothing
I feel like I should have taken her baby and given it to an orphanage or something. I told Grace this later, but she said there was nothing could do, that I am too young to take care of a child. She also said that there are probably millions of children that need to be taken care of and even if I was old enough I could not take care of them all. Even though she is young, I know she is right. And that makes me feel like my chest is hollow.
But, it seems to me that there are so many older than us who are able to take care of those in need. If everyone did a little bit, then everybody would be okay, I think. Instead, most people do nothing. And that is the problem. Does that make sense, Kuya?
The next drawer, much to my surprise, is crammed full of Toblerone bars and packages of those Ferrero Rocher chocolates that are wrapped in gold foil.
[…]
The last two drawers, one on each side of the desk, are the kind that contain hanging file folders. I pull out the one on the left, and it's so light that I already know it's empty. Sure enough, there's only dust and stray folder tabs. I try the one on the right—but it won't budge.
There's a small keyhole, so I search through the other drawers for a key. I don't find one, but there are plenty of paper clips. I straighten one out and then poke the thin metal into the keyhole. I have no idea what I'm doing, of course, but it always looks so easy in the movies. Maybe if I keep poking it will hit a release?
He stops. Reaches up and pulls the sack off his head.
It's Jun. His hair's a mess, tangled with sticks and dirt, and the lower half of his jaw is missing, a gory mess in its place. His eyes meet mine. Two stars in a clear winter sky.
“What happened to you?” I ask.
The exposed muscle and sinew where his lower jaw used to be twitches as he continues moving toward me.
“I'm sorry for what they did to you. I'm sorry I lost your letters. I’m sorry I was too afraid to speak to Tito Maning again tonight. But please tell me, what happened to you?”
He doesn’t answer. He can't. Instead, he stops a step away. Then he reaches out and places his palm against my chest.
I wake.
I knew it. I fucking knew it.
The Jun who hugged me after that puppy died, who became a best friend more than a cousin, who wrote me letters for years, whose heart was bigger than anyone else's I've ever known—there was no way he would have sold drugs. He was too good. He was the best of us. He wouldn't have been able to live with himself knowing and feeling the pain and destruction those drugs would have caused.
But I keep talking because I'm determined to resist falling into the same pattern as always. This is my life, and I want my family to understand it in a way none of us truly understood Jun's. If we are to be more than what we have been, there's so much that we need to say. Salvation through honesty, I guess.
[…]
We are not doomed to suffer things as they are, silent and alone. We do not have to leave questions and letters and lives unanswered. We have more power and potential than we know if we would only speak, if we would only listen.
The Letters Symbol Timeline in Patron Saints of Nothing
