Sad

Sad news: My son’s friend/fraternity brother did not make it. The Child and his fraternity brothers have gone to the funeral. The thought of the loss of a young man, a good young man, is heartbreaking, and I cannot imagine--no, I don’t want to imagine--what his family must be going through right now. It’s too painful.

The reality is that death does not pick and choose, but strikes with seeming unreason, and no one escapes it. In that, it is bitterly dependable. What is not so dependable is our reaction to it. I look at my son and his fraternity brothers, however, and I am glad they have the character and heart to come to the side of a friend and his family, sit vigil, and do what they can in their young and earnest way to support the family in their loss. I don’t know how many would take the effort and tirelessly travel all that way to support and pay respects to someone who is not related, and was known for only a short time. It is easy to run from death, and look the other way, because it is a fearful thing.

These are good young men. My son will always be “my boy,” but the image of him as an adult is stronger now than the small, chubby-cheeked little one I keep in my heart, when I think of him dealing with this shock and grief as an adult in a way that makes me proud. He is a good person, as are his friends. Death simply is, but good people look at it plainly, and continue to be good. And this, in light of this terrible event, comforts me.

--Karen H.

Worries

        The Alien Child called yesterday, saying he was heading home--or at least to this side of the mountains, a trip of over 300 miles. It’s not a holiday, not any kind of school break. Was he expelled? (Incomprehensible thought!) Did something go wrong?

        Turns out a fraternity brother who had gone to Seattle for a football game got into a serious traffic accident (not his fault, it seems), is apparently non-responsive to stimuli, and is in a coma. The bond of friendship for my son is strong, and he takes seriously the vow to support his fraternity brothers, so he and some of the young men from the fraternity are now on this side of the mountains, sitting at the bedside of their friend at a Seattle hospital.

        My heart is breaking for this young man’s family--how frightening and terrible to see their child so hurt, his life hanging by a thread. I’m praying for a miracle, that this boy will recover.

        (sigh) It means that my kid will have a lot of school work to make up, and I hope his professor will let him take the test he missed. But, given the choice, I would rather he have the kindness of heart to go to the side of a critically injured friend than get a good grade. You can take a class over again, make up a test, but comforting and supporting others in need is time that can’t be made up.

        Of course, this means I will worry about the trip back for him and his friends; we’ve had nasty weather lately, they might be in a distracted state of mind when they return home. I hope and pray they will remember to be safe, too.

--Karen H.

Revisions

        Well. I've been revising the latest manuscript, and oy! Got it back a while ago from my editor who said it Just Didn't Work and that It Must Be Fixed. Part of me groaned and just wished that stack of papers I received in the mail would go away. I have other ideas, other stories that want to be written. The Muse is impatiently tapping her foot, wanting me to done with it already. She can't seem to understand that having the story down on paper does not mean it's done.

        Another part of me impatiently wants to delve into the revisions so that I can sculpt the story into something better, elegant in form and stature. There's something enormously satisfying about the revision process; it's a different sort of magic from the sheer raw creative first draft. You read through the raw material and hone in on one thing to fix, and then click, click, click! A string of domino-motifs snakes through the plot, theme, and characters and ties everything together. When things click like that, it's almost a physical sensation of rightness.

        It's frustrating though; doing extensive revisions in the way see it'll need to be done demands some long, focused time, which is in short supply since I'm working full time outside the home. By the time I come home and am done with dinner, I'm tired and my mind refuses to concentrate in the way it should. So, that leaves the weekend; 10 hours at least per weekend should do the trick.

        I feel tired just thinking of it.

        Actually, I'm looking at the clock and it's past 11 pm, and that’s probably why I'm feeling tired. So, off to bed. With luck, I'll have some time during lunch tomorrow to work on the revisions.