Transcription

Luke –

You will likely never read this, let alone find it. I hope you will never have cause to look for it. But I feel that somewhere in the future... Right now, I feel that I need to tell you. Whether this reaches your eyes eventually or not.

I was not born a Jedi. I was born to two loving parents, on a peaceful world far from the war-torn galaxy we live in now. I had a brother, Owen, and a younger sister that was born after I left. Owen was married the last time I knew, with a strong young daughter and a son on the way.

Sometimes I envy him.

I was given to the Jedi at age five, according to my file – the one I altered, the last time I visited the place I knew as home most of my life. I was confused, bewildered. I remember Master Yoda personally guiding me through that first day. To this day I'm not sure why I struck his interest.

At age eight, I was allowed to visit my birth home. My early memories of my brother mostly come from that visit – I remember little or nothing before that time, of him or my family.

I remember at the end of the visit, I was given a choice: to stay, or return to the Jedi.

I returned.

Now and then, mostly in my darkest moments, I wonder whether or not I made the right choice. But then I remember the good I was able to do, even if it was tempered by pain and, eventually, betrayal.

I would not have been there to help my own Jedi Master, Qui-gon Jinn, slowly overcome the pain at his first apprentice's betrayal. I would not have been there to help Anakin when he joined the Jedi.

Sometimes I wonder whether or not I truly helped him, but I know I did my best.

Had I not returned, I would not have been there for you, either. Padmé would still have gone to your father for the truth, and I would not have been there to intervene, or to take her to safety, however belated. You and your sister would likely have not survived.

She was given to a strong family, hidden in plain sight with a family that would love her. Her adoptive father is a good man, one to whom I owe my life. Indirectly, this may mean you and Leia owe your lives to him as well.

Sometimes I wonder what I would have become, had my life not been ruled by discipline and the Jedi way. Sometimes I craved the other path, when my path became difficult for me to bear. And sometimes I wonder what kind of people would trust an eight-year-old boy to choose his fate.

I tried to give you that choice, Luke.

You will be raised by a real family, with both a father and mother figure, and learn life's lessons without the weight of duty placed far too young upon your shoulders. You will have the choice, unlike I or your father really did, of whether to go... or stay.

We were far too young to be pressed with that decision.

You will be given that freedom, Luke. That choice is yours to make, whenever fate presents it to you.

And truly, I believe that it is the way that the Jedi should have done it all along.

– Obi-wan Kenobi