bleckblog: musings of a community college english teacher

Here's the first words of my novel. I've decided, for no good reason other than I want to, to develop the story in epistolary form. I have no idea how far I can take it or if it will work, or how well it will work if it does work, but I made my word count for the day. I haven't blown it yet! Here it is:

1 November, 2005

Hello Father,

Thank you for the most recent letter. I appreciate that you are willing to write back and forth in letters rather than email, despite them seeming slow, maybe even ancient, anachronistic. But there is something about putting things, thoughts, to paper, sealing them in an envelope, applying a stamp and posting them that makes them more real, more tangible to me, and I hope to you. If nothing else, since I print so many emails, a letter looks like a letter, looks like something permanent, unlike an email, which, even though it can be deleted from my account, and even though it may linger on a network somewhere, maybe forever, or until its form becomes obsolete, this way I know I will have the letters unless they fall victim to mold, fire or some other calamity. Again, thank you.

Yes, I did mean it when I said that “death” had been good to us as of late. Not you, necessarily, but to me and my family. While we have lost two loved ones, it was well past time for Grandfather to have gone as he had long been so feeble and had lingered for so long in the home. His delusions were also more than we could handle, and that, coupled with his being hard of hearing, made not just our visits difficult, but his life all but over. With regard to mother, we had much rather she be here with us than to have inherited what we did from her. Money and property is always a nice thing, but the price is much higher than we were willing to pay. But, like Grandfather, we really had no say in the matter. The cancer took her when it took her. We did what we could to make her life better, maybe even comfortable in her last hours, but there were limits. While Grandfather’s passing was something of a blessing given his state, mother’s passing is never something we’d view as a blessing, which I’m sure you’ll understand and accept me saying even though the two of your had been estranged for quite some time.

Beyond all that, yes, we are coping with the loss, still. It’s been well over a year since the loss of mother, but I’m sure I will never reach the point where I can be comfortable with her not being here, not being here to be my mothers, to be a grandmother to Edward, as you are his grandfather. Because I spent so much more of my time with her as I was growing up, I can only hope that you will understand and accept that she was more than just my mother, but she was my best friend. Even as I approach my 40th year, I think about my times with her, about shuttling between the two of you between Seattle and Spokane the drives, meeting in Vantage, halfway between the two cities, and later the flights back and forth when I grew older. While I enjoyed my summers and some holidays with you, it was the rest of the year, the times spent with Marion, that have stuck with, that dominate the way I think and feel. I have no real choice about that, but I don’t know that I would choose differently if I could.

And this is why I don’t understand your reaction to my last letter. It seems that you harbor some resentment toward me or Marion, I can’t tell which, maybe the both of us. I wish that you could see and understand that what I felt for her, feel for her despite her death, means nothing with regard to how I feel about or for you. You are my father. I have no wish to change that, anymore than I wish to change my mother, the circumstances of my birth, my upbringing, or my more recent years. Certainly I don’t like everything about my childhood or teen years, not the way you treated me, not the way mother treated me, nor the way I behaved toward the two of you and your wife. In particular, as I grow older, I understand how Alexis struggled to be something of a mother to me, even though I had a mother, just a mother in a different place. It seemed she tried even harder after Marion’s death, and I admit I didn’t like that, the notion that I should somehow switch my allegiances from my mother, my best friend, who despite her mistakes was by my side as I was by her side.

I don’t understand how I could be expected to leave so many years of my life behind, to act as if they had never happened because someone else thought I should. I understand that my reluctance contributed to Alexis feeling estranged from me, but I see no fault of my own in that. No do I see any fault in my not wanting to pursue any sort of reconciliation at this point. I’m sorry I have no more to say on this tonight, but I’m sure I will in the coming days. I’ll post this in the morning on my way to work.

As ever, B-----

November 5, 2005

B-----,

I’m happy to continue writing this way. While I don’t care much for the extra time it takes to send letters between us, it’s a step I’m willing to take to see what we can do to mend things between us. In your last letter, you wrote that you didn’t like the way I or Alexis treated you as a child or a teen while you were with us. I’m at a loss to understand just what it is that leads you to say something of this sort. Both Alexis and I did everything in our power, going so far as to consider taking legal action to keep you with us, so you could have more benefits growing up. As you know, we never took that step, thinking it better to let you stay with your mother. When we had your sister later, we felt even more that the best place for you was with us, but for reasons I can’t recall or explain after all these years, we never pursued that option.

More distressing to me is the indifference you feel toward your brother, who has never had anything but your best interests in mind, or in his heart. While it’s true he was raised with many more advantages than you, it’s not because we loved him more than we love you, not at all. It’s simply because we had money and your mother didn’t. That we could send your brother to camps each summer, we did so to enable us to spend more time with you. Were you to come here for the summer, and were we to then send you off to camp, we would have had no time together. I regret now that you didn’t get to know your brother, that we didn’t send you to a camp with him, or keep him home with us so you could get to know him, but there’s nothing we can do about that now. We just expect that you understand these things were done with your best interests in mind, in our hearts.

We would like you to reach out more to your brother, to be more of a brother to him. He is your junior. He knows less about how to get on in the world, though we see him as a gentle, kind soul. Perhaps that’s because we were able to protect him in ways we were not able to protect you. I know you don’t want to hear this, and certainly you don’t want to hear this with the death of your mother fresh in your memory, but we wanted you with us, away from your mother, knowing we could do better for you, offering more than she could offer, whether it was better schools, a better home, just a better place to live and blossom. But you didn’t want that at the time, so we let you stay with your mother. But none of that means you shouldn’t reach out to your brother. It seems you are somehow jealous of him, though I don’t know why, or that you resent what he has, what he has done, because his life looks easy to you. But his life is just as much a challenge, maybe more of a challenge in its own way, that what you enabled you to be the intelligent, loving person you are today. It’s because of that intelligence, that love you give when you want to, that makes it hard for us to understand why you won’t include your brother.

Your mother, Alexis, and I look forward to the time when you can be more of a brother to your brother, more of a son to the both of us, and we in turn can be more of a father and mother to you, a grandfather and grandmother to Laura, even more of a friend to Willa. I hope this finds you well. We look forward to the time when we can get together again.

Hugs,

L------

12 November 2005

Dear L------,

In my earlier letters, I’ve done what I could to make clear that as much as I care for Alexis, I can’t view her as my mother, not even as a mother figure. I understand how that is difficult for the two of you, but this is something, the way I feel, and I can’t change that. It’s just who I am and I hope you can accept me for it, for me being me, as I do my best to accept the three of you for who you are and not who I would like you to be, who I wish you could be. It’s not my place to tell you what to do and think, only to let you know how you might meet my needs as your child. I’m doing my best to keep my needs realistic, to understand what you can reasonably be expected to provide. My hope is that you can do the same for me.