A MESSAGE FOR LINDA AND OTHERS

Whenever Linda and I were alone in her hospital room, she would tell me she hoped soon to catch up on THE HOPE LADY Blog. She didn’t ask what she might find there, and I didn’t tell her how my writing had dwindled and then stopped altogether. I knew that I would write something special for her to read at the first sign that she might come into contact with a computer. I knew I would do that special piece of writing no matter how busy I was, no matter where I was. I had no idea what the piece would say.
Now Linda is gone. At no time did she come even remotely close to a computer. She did not want to be gone. She wanted to live. That was her story and she stuck with it. Her mind was willing. Her body? Not so much.
And so, to you Linda, this is what I will say. I didn’t quit writing because I had lost my hope. I didn’t quit because I had lost my hope for your recovery. I quit because I was already unbelievably busy when you got sick, and the action around your health consumed all the time and creativity I would have given to writing. My hope, like yours, stayed firmly intact.
When you lose the body of somebody in your life, it sometimes clears a space for memories and thoughts that had slipped below the radar of your consciousness. I had forgotten, and have only now remembered how you worried about me when I first married your brother. You worried because I couldn’t find a job and you thought that was just plain wrong. You thought potential employers might be ruling me out because of my blindness. You came up with schemes that would encourage potential employers to get to know me. If I would offer to work for nothing, even for a week, you were certain they would put me on the payroll and keep me for as long as I wanted to stay.
I didn’t know how to respond to your overtures. It is likely that I ignored them altogether. I was pretty scared at the time. I was only twenty then and I didn’t have the crystal ball that would have shown me the full life of happy and meaningful employment that was about to unfold for me. But I do know that it gave me a lot of happiness to know that you were on my side. This is what we all need, people on our side.
To those of you who have noticed the silence of THE HOPE LADY and taken the time to inquire, I say thank you for asking. Give me a few more days and things will settle down. That’s what I need, a few more days.