The Last Letter of a Mover and Shaker

A Short Story

And the cat’s in the cradle and the silver spoon

Little boy blue and the man in the moon

“When you comin’ home, Dad?”

“I don’t know when

But we’ll get together then

You know we’ll have a good time then”

—Harry Chapin

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The lawyer waited until the dirt had settled and most of the crowd had dispersed.

Not all the way, just enough so that it no longer looked like work was still being done or people were paying homage.

It was a gray day, the kind the city produces without effort. Rain hung without committing. Steam lifted off the river beyond the cemetery wall, carrying soot and wet iron from factories somewhere downstream. The skyline was there in the distance if you squinted, blurred by the haze and hubbub of industry.

The lawyer touched the young man lightly on the elbow.

“Your father wanted you to have this.”

An envelope. Heavy. Cream-colored. His name written carefully, deliberately, as if handwriting were already disappearing. He nodded, folded it once, slid it into his coat pocket.

His phone buzzed. Then again.

He didn’t open the letter yet.

Later—after the car was returned, after the calendar was scanned, after the inbox was cleared to zero—he sat alone on a bench near the river. The rain had finally made up its mind. He opened the envelope.

---

Dear Son,

If you’re reading this, I am moving and shaking no more.

At least my body isn’t.

It’s now confined to a box.

Six feet of finally, of forever.

I always wanted to be a mover and a shaker. I said it out loud once, half-joking, at a dinner where everyone laughed a little too hard. I liked how it sounded. I liked how it excused things.

What I didn’t understand then—and only understood much later—is that a mover inside a shaker has no foundation. Just momentum. Just noise. Just the feeling of importance sloshing around without ever settling.

I thought speed meant direction.

I thought activity meant progress.

And I believed it because believing it made the trade feel clean.

I was wrong, but not in a poetic way. In a boring way. In a Tuesday way.

I was very impressive.

I was rarely home.

I missed your tenth birthday. It was a Tuesday in March. You wanted to go to the batting cages. I told your mother I’d be home in time. I wasn’t. The deal ran long. It always did. I sent a text with a cake emoji and thought that counted for something.

We skipped Hilton Head the summer you were twelve. I told myself it was just one year. I watched the ocean on a hotel TV in Chicago and told myself I was providing.

I kept a lot of promises that way.

Moving and shaking crowds things out. It crowds out titles that don’t fit on a business card—father, husband—and replaces them with adjectives that read well but feel thin when you sit with them too long.

I told myself this was temporary. That once the board was satisfied, once the number ticked high enough, I would return. As if life were a browser tab I could reopen later.

What no one tells you is that constant motion bleeds all the stillness from life. It leaves no place for interior quiet. No place to stand long enough to notice what you’re trading away.

You are always in transit. Always late. Even when you arrive.

Now, finally, I’m still.

No calls to return.

No decks to mark up.

No urgency left to feed.

Just a body at rest and a life that cannot be rescheduled.

If this letter finds you rushing, slow down.

If it finds you full, set something down.

Build something that doesn’t spill when the room shakes.

Be someone who remains when the noise fades.

That’s the part I got wrong.

I love you.

I always did, even when I acted like I didn’t have time to.

Dad

---

The young man folded the letter carefully, then unfolded it, then folded it again more quickly.

His phone vibrated.

A meeting reminder. Something about timelines. Something urgent.

He stood, tucked the letter back into his coat, and started toward the street. Phone in hand, he was already rehearsing what he’d say when he was five minutes late.

Behind him, the river kept steaming.

The city kept moving.

The shaker did his work.

---

Per my about page, White Noise is a work of experimentation. I view it as a sort of thinking aloud, a stress testing of my nascent ideas. Through it, I hope to sharpen my opinions against the whetstone of other people’s feedback, commentary, and input.

If you want to discuss any of the ideas or musings mentioned above or have any books, papers, or links that you think would be interesting to share in a future edition of White Noise, please reach out to me by replying to this email or following me on X.

With sincere gratitude,

Tom