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Dear Reader,
It's hard to recapture a feeling. There's a phone message saved on my answering machine. It's been there for almost three years.
"Hi Suzanne. Just calling to let you know the deviled eggs were a huge hit. Mom thought about them all day. And she ate the chocolate covered strawberries you brought, too. You may have caught her on the last day she could have a conversation. Today's she's very gone mentally. Just telling you this, so when you come to visit today, you're prepared. She's pretty bad. Though she might just rally herself for you. Thanks for everything you've done."
The phone message is from the son, of a friend of mine who was dying. I haven't erased the message because I don't want to lose touch with the time I spent with my friend before she passed. Because the farther away from the day she died, the more difficult it is for me to recapture how I felt. The more time that passes, the harder it is for me to hear the sadness and grief in her son's voice, so I save the message. Listening takes me back. Instantly I feel like I'm sitting in my friend's hospice room. The same thing happens when I listen to Adelle's song, "Someone Like You." Every day for weeks, I listened to that song over and over again, as I was driving to the hospice house. Even now when I listen to the song, I'm right back there sitting with my friend. Talking to my friend about her life and her death.
Every day as soon as I got home from my visit I had to start writing. It wasn't a choice. The words came tumbling out. A graceful walk on the balance beam, yet the words came fast and furiously. I couldn't write quick enough. I had to write. I knew it was what I was supposed to do, but still after three years, I'm not sure what to do with those words. My friend gave me permission, "Suzanne, you can write about our visits and anything we talked about." She was a writer, too. She felt the power in the room. She knew the power in writing a story and sharing it with other people.
It may not be clear to me what I'm supposed to do with what I've written, but now I know why I've saved the feelings. Because spending time with death gave me lessons on how to live.
Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.
Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@DearReader.com
* This month's Penguin Classics book is BUTTERFIELD 8 by John O'Hara. Start reading now and enter to win a Penguin bookbag.
http://www.supportlibrary.com/bc/v.cfm?L=drclassqqxqN1AFE3FA7A11&c=CLASSICS
AUTHORBUZZ: THE COMFORT OF LIES (Fiction) by Randy Susan Meyers
A man's affair leads to a baby everyone and no one wants. Three connected women and men question if having children define them, if hating motherhood's routines demonize them, if they can love a child they never knew, if they can accept their husband's child from an affair, and if they can still claim motherhood after placing their child for adoption. My novel examines the year they face the damages of infidelity and the rights and needs of a little girl.
Go to: http://authorbuzz.com/dearreader click on THE COMFORT OF LIES to read more and to email author, you'll get a reply.
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