Life's Pages

I've been thinking about writing a book for as long as people have been telling me I should, which has been awhile now.

My husband insists I have "a book in me" and breakfast with one of my dearest friends always starts with the same question.  "Have you found a publisher, yet?"

Honestly, I laugh at the thought of having anything left to write (and the irony of this post in light of that).  Ecclesiastes and nothing-new-under-the-sun are forerunners in reasons why not.  There is no storehouse of ideas, or anything within me that feels like it is waiting to be written.   

Perhaps, it is what I've already written, they suggest.  

While this is very nice and affirming, it hasn’t proven a springboard for anything other than good feelings about what has already been done. 

But, occasionally things happen which feel like a nudge toward something. Things that make me think that maybe I shouldn’t rule it out.  Not just, yet.

Little things like little questions in little blue books that say, “Take something that feels big and make it smaller.  What is the first step?”

And big things, like meeting a new hospice patient and her family. Carol.  Her greatness unfolded right there at the kitchen table, in part, but not exclusively borne of her length of years.  I admired her bright eyes, painted fingernails, and her paintings on the walls.  

I inquired about whether she'd ever consider writing a book.  Her daughter-in-law replied that she already had.  Her son disappeared from the table and placed it into my very hands.

I had to fight back tears, and said as much.  Not just because she'd done the work of it, but because an aggressive dementia has closed the window of time when doing any such thing again would be out of the question.  She simply stated that she started with a table of contents, went as far back as she could remember, and went from there.  

I’ve only just begun to read it, but I am in awe of it.  Its cover, contents, and weight.  I think about all that has happened within her life and its pages, and wonder how much of it she remembers or would have been lost without her rendition.

She reminds me that there is more than one reason to write a book. For yourself, now.  For your family.  For hospice chaplains and interested strangers.  For profit, if you have the means.  And for yourself, later.

Only the last reason might be the one for me.  The one that pushes me over the edge from dreaming to doing.  What if by writing these things now, I can revisit my life again as me with intimate knowledge or as an outsider who has forgotten?  As one who admires the main character in the story, but has forgotten I was her?  Or as one who gains some warmth of soul by hearing a “new” story written in a really, really, really familiar way?  

Carol’s first chapter begins with a quote by James Barrie. “God gave us memories that we might have June roses in the December of our lives.”  

Thank God for difficult ideas and realities put simply and beautifully. 

And thank God for Carol and the Prestenbach family, The Bends In My Road, and the ability to inspire at every age and in every circumstance.  For June roses in December, thoughtful planting, safe-keeping, and books waiting to be written…