I mailed my son a birthday card he cannot receive

Dear Delyara, My son is living somewhere in this city, but I do not know his address. He stopped speaking to me four years ago after I refused to accept his husband. I called it religion then. I see it as cowardice now. Every birthday, I buy a card and write to him. I apologize without asking for an answer, tell him one ordinary thing about the family, and remind him that the door is open. Then I place the card inside another envelope addressed to myself because I have nowhere else to send it. Today he turned thirty-two. I chose a card with a ridiculous cartoon dog because he used to laugh at those as a child. Inside, I wrote that his father has begun attending a group for parents like us and that I have finally learned the difference between regretting consequences and changing the beliefs that caused them. The card arrived back in my mailbox this afternoon, as planned. My own handwriting looked like a stranger’s. I opened it and read the message as if I were my son deciding whether the words deserved trust. They did not feel large enough. I have twenty-eight returned cards in a drawer. One day, if he contacts me, I do not know whether I will give them to him or burn them. Love written too late can become another burden placed in the hands of the person already hurt.