Friday – One Prayer Answered, One To Go
Jul. 18th, 2008 02:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ninanevermore.
.
.
Today on my drive into work, I was thinking that for as long as I can remember I have been praying, "Please, God, give me a purpose. Please make me matter." Recently, my purpose has become clear to me, and now I have a new prayer, "Please, please let someone drop a big bag of money in my lap, big enough to make bruises to my legs, because I have to figure out how to do this without cash."
I have to write a book. It's no longer, "I should write a book," or "I'd like to write a book." I have to. I promised, a year ago this month. I should never have sent Leslie that envelope last year, but it seemed like an innocent enough thing to do. I sent a short letter, 3 or 4 of my poems, and some photographs.
Promises are funny things. When Leslie asked me to tell her story, the deal was that she would tell it to me and I would put it on the page for her.
"Nina, when this is all over, you have got to do this for me. You've got a gift, girl. A gift, I'm telling you. What I've been through needs be told, because no mother should ever have to endure what I've had to endure. Now, I can write, I used to write all the time, poems and shit, but I stopped for some reason. I wasn't as good as you. I want you to write down my story because people need to know. When this whole thing with Cameron is over, I want you to help me tell them. Promise me you'll do that, okay, Nina?"
She was crying. All I wanted to do was make her stop crying, so I promised.
"Of course," I said, "Sure."
It could be argued that Leslie squelched on her end of the deal by dropping dead on me before narrating the story I was supposed to tell. She never gave me the details, so that should absolve me from writing them down for her. But the promises we make to the living are different than the ones we make to the dying, and unbeknownst to either of us, Leslie was dying when we had that conversation. The weakness in the walls of her blood vessels was there already, like a time bomb ticking in her head. Neither of us heard it, but the countdown had already begun.
You can back out of a promise to a living person. You can call them up and say, "I've thought it through, and there's no way I can do this for you. No hard feelings, huh?" Leslie didn't call to give me this message, but my cousin Aly delivered it for her with the words, "Leslie's gone." Turns out, she couldn't do her part and I have to accept that with no hard feelings.
But keeping my end of the bargain isn't going to be easy. Writing a book is a full time endeavor; I can't do it, work 40-plus hours a week, and raise a child at the same time. Since my subject matter was also my main source of information and she is no longer around, I am going to have to track down other sources. I need to talk to her husbands, her son's nurses, her friends, and all the other people that knew her and glean what I can from them. I need to go to Tennessee and speak with everyone who knew her those final years of her life. I have not been on an airplane since I was 15 years old, but I have no choice.
I want to call her and say, "Leslie, I've thought this over and I can't wrap my head around how I am going to manage this, so I need to bow out. Thanks for thinking so much of me, and thanks for thinking I have a gift and being one of my biggest fans, but I just can't do this for you. Find someone else to tell your story, okay? No hard feelings, right?"
Leslie, however, is no longer there to take my call.
The puzzle pieces of my life are coming together and creating a coherent picture for the first time, and it seems my purpose was there waiting for me in the wings all along. What possessed me to get a degree in Journalism when I can barely make a phone call and I don't like talking to strangers? Maybe because I need to become an investigative reporter so I can hunt down my cousin's story. What possessed me to start writing down almost every conversation I had with her in this journal, long before I knew she would be okay with it? Hell, I even used her real name, when most of the people I write about get the courtesy of a pseudonym. Perhaps before that's why I was put her in the first place, to tell her story.
I suspect that in tracking down her story, I will find my own in there somewhere, waiting for me like the guests at a surprise party. In the meanwhile, now that the question of what has been answered, the question of how rears its ugly head.
Without any other ideas how to proceed, I've starting playing the state lottery again. I know it's a long shot, but everything in my life has been a long shot. One thing that Leslie and I shared in common was a belief that we belonged to the tribe of those other people, the people to whom things that only happen to other people routinely happen to. I figure this has to work as a blessing as well as a curse; it can't all be dread diseases and tragedies – only "other" people win the lottery, as well.
Besides, if God is going to drop a purpose for living in my lap, I figure he can damn well pony up the cash to make it happen.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * # * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
.
.
Today on my drive into work, I was thinking that for as long as I can remember I have been praying, "Please, God, give me a purpose. Please make me matter." Recently, my purpose has become clear to me, and now I have a new prayer, "Please, please let someone drop a big bag of money in my lap, big enough to make bruises to my legs, because I have to figure out how to do this without cash."
I have to write a book. It's no longer, "I should write a book," or "I'd like to write a book." I have to. I promised, a year ago this month. I should never have sent Leslie that envelope last year, but it seemed like an innocent enough thing to do. I sent a short letter, 3 or 4 of my poems, and some photographs.
Promises are funny things. When Leslie asked me to tell her story, the deal was that she would tell it to me and I would put it on the page for her.
"Nina, when this is all over, you have got to do this for me. You've got a gift, girl. A gift, I'm telling you. What I've been through needs be told, because no mother should ever have to endure what I've had to endure. Now, I can write, I used to write all the time, poems and shit, but I stopped for some reason. I wasn't as good as you. I want you to write down my story because people need to know. When this whole thing with Cameron is over, I want you to help me tell them. Promise me you'll do that, okay, Nina?"
She was crying. All I wanted to do was make her stop crying, so I promised.
"Of course," I said, "Sure."
It could be argued that Leslie squelched on her end of the deal by dropping dead on me before narrating the story I was supposed to tell. She never gave me the details, so that should absolve me from writing them down for her. But the promises we make to the living are different than the ones we make to the dying, and unbeknownst to either of us, Leslie was dying when we had that conversation. The weakness in the walls of her blood vessels was there already, like a time bomb ticking in her head. Neither of us heard it, but the countdown had already begun.
You can back out of a promise to a living person. You can call them up and say, "I've thought it through, and there's no way I can do this for you. No hard feelings, huh?" Leslie didn't call to give me this message, but my cousin Aly delivered it for her with the words, "Leslie's gone." Turns out, she couldn't do her part and I have to accept that with no hard feelings.
But keeping my end of the bargain isn't going to be easy. Writing a book is a full time endeavor; I can't do it, work 40-plus hours a week, and raise a child at the same time. Since my subject matter was also my main source of information and she is no longer around, I am going to have to track down other sources. I need to talk to her husbands, her son's nurses, her friends, and all the other people that knew her and glean what I can from them. I need to go to Tennessee and speak with everyone who knew her those final years of her life. I have not been on an airplane since I was 15 years old, but I have no choice.
I want to call her and say, "Leslie, I've thought this over and I can't wrap my head around how I am going to manage this, so I need to bow out. Thanks for thinking so much of me, and thanks for thinking I have a gift and being one of my biggest fans, but I just can't do this for you. Find someone else to tell your story, okay? No hard feelings, right?"
Leslie, however, is no longer there to take my call.
The puzzle pieces of my life are coming together and creating a coherent picture for the first time, and it seems my purpose was there waiting for me in the wings all along. What possessed me to get a degree in Journalism when I can barely make a phone call and I don't like talking to strangers? Maybe because I need to become an investigative reporter so I can hunt down my cousin's story. What possessed me to start writing down almost every conversation I had with her in this journal, long before I knew she would be okay with it? Hell, I even used her real name, when most of the people I write about get the courtesy of a pseudonym. Perhaps before that's why I was put her in the first place, to tell her story.
I suspect that in tracking down her story, I will find my own in there somewhere, waiting for me like the guests at a surprise party. In the meanwhile, now that the question of what has been answered, the question of how rears its ugly head.
Without any other ideas how to proceed, I've starting playing the state lottery again. I know it's a long shot, but everything in my life has been a long shot. One thing that Leslie and I shared in common was a belief that we belonged to the tribe of those other people, the people to whom things that only happen to other people routinely happen to. I figure this has to work as a blessing as well as a curse; it can't all be dread diseases and tragedies – only "other" people win the lottery, as well.
Besides, if God is going to drop a purpose for living in my lap, I figure he can damn well pony up the cash to make it happen.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-07-18 07:27 pm (UTC)You didn't give her a deadline so I know it will take forever (that holds me back too) but over time, I think you'll be glad you did it.
Where in TN do you have to go (if you want to say?)
It's a lovely place to visit:)
Since you feel you are meant to do it, somehow it will come together. It doesn't have to be done TOMORROW.
I'm glad you're doing this. I'm sure it will mean a lot to her family.
Maria
no subject
Date: 2008-07-18 07:32 pm (UTC)Tennessee doesn't sound like a big deal, but I've barely been outside of Texas.
It can't be done tomorrow, but I've got to start working on a game plan, lining up my ducks and so on.
You ever just know something, without any good reason for knowing it? I know I have to do this.
no subject
Date: 2008-07-18 10:39 pm (UTC)Tennessee is BEAUTIFUL ... I think you'll enjoy it!
no subject
Date: 2008-07-19 02:57 pm (UTC)I also want to visit the museum associated with The Body Farm, since that is the closest I can get to visiting her grave.
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Date: 2008-07-19 06:10 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2008-07-21 08:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-21 09:53 pm (UTC)I know you'd write Cameron's story better than anyone else I know!!
*HUGS*
no subject
Date: 2008-07-22 08:18 pm (UTC)Until then, we're kind of in the same boat. *sigh*
no subject
Date: 2008-07-22 08:26 pm (UTC)Eh, Oh well. I think a lot of us are in the same boat. *wry smile*