Sometimes a story writes itself. It percolates for decades, spinning out its intricate details while you go about your life oblivious to what is playing out in the details of the quotidian daily grind. But I have learned that God is in those details, down to the smallest dotted i and crossed t. He is the Master Creator, the Divine Artist who conducts behind the scenes; and, even though you seldom recognize His Presence, He is there.....oh is He ever there. It was on one of those rare occasions when I did hear Him speaking to me that I recognized the Truth of my story, and how part of that story was in the writing of it. Events in my life began to pound my consciousness and everything started to fit together like some giant cosmic puzzle. Not that I had all the answers, or the whole thing figured out, but that I started to see the pattern and the sense in it all.
It started back when I was in High School.....
“The little writer,” the weak words wafting from the hospital bed were just above audible. I saw a frail arm lift and a hand extend toward me from the rumpled sheets. The muffled voice and barely recognizable form was that of my great aunt, Auntee we called her affectionately. Although I never felt particularly affectionate toward her. She was always a little scary to me - an imposing authoritarian and I felt a propulsion to be particularly lady-like on the visits to her large Victorian home where we paid formal visits to the Parlor. I got the sense my father, her nephew felt the same way. The visits were obligatory and stiff, paying homage to the wealthy family matriarch. I was her namesake for whatever that was worth. I always had a sneaking suspicion my being named for Auntee was a familial suck-up and not out of any true adoration. She was a spinster (an old maid like the card game) and had dedicated her life to education, having served as teacher and then principal of a landmark elementary school. As an educator, she recognized the value and weightiness of words.
Now my parents had taken me to
“Go ahead,” my father urged me with a gentle push in the direction of the bed. “Talk to Auntee about your writing.”
So, here, in a place smelling like death and decay, I heard from the lips of a dying woman, a prophetic announcement over me that was to stay with me throughout my life. It was among many signs throughout my years that would pronounce me a writer. I don’t know why I ignored the auguries as long as I did. Perhaps it was laziness or a fear of failure, the dread of having nothing to say, or worse, that no one would care about what I had to say. These were the things that kept me from pursuing what I have always known I was born to do. And yet I didn’t. Oh, I have always been a prolific journalizer, a great writer of letters, a dabbler. But I have never put it all out there for the world to see. I guess I thought, “Who would care?” Well, of late, it has come to my attention, through repeated affirmations, that God cares.
