Breakthrough
First, before I detail my exciting breakthrough, let me tell you about book club last night.

Five of the women came - Jenny (of course), Amy, Judy, Chiara and Gael. We ate quiche and drank wine and only spoke briefly about the book, which is how a great book club meeting should be. We instead spoke about religion and growing up and how we all detested pretty boys. We talked about parents and spouses and Burning Man. This is a great grouping of intelligent, funny funny women. I am so grateful to Jen for bringing me into the group. It has been so long since I've spent time with a group of girlfriends. It reminded me of the late nights at Helen Newberry, sitting at the tables in front of the library, our books unopened before us as we talked until dawn. There was a space inside me that was craving that. I didn't realize it until it was filled.

My dear friend Jen, how happy I am to be living near you.

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Tonight, I missed the second hair appointment in a row because some hackers got into our server again. The bossman, whom I call Sensei, called and gave me the back door entrance to our publishing tool. This meant that I had to sit around and enter stories for anyone who couldn't get into the tool. It also meant that my hair was going to be ignored, yet again.

My writing class, too, was a no-go. But at around 7pm, the server began functioning again. I decided to treat myself to one of my Netflixs. So we watched Meeting People is Easy, a documentary about the band Radiohead and the year following the release of their off-the-charts album, OK Computer. Thom Yorke, first of all, is sort of a god to me. Radiohead is extremely important to my creative life, as I listen to it whenever I am writing. It never fails to inspire me. I am listening right now, in fact, and have been ever since watching the film tonight.

I was listening to a song called No Surprises, and thinking about my book. And that's when the breakthrough occured. I realized that the fact that Marlowe's brother was dead was really stagnating everything for me. I mean, when the 2nd most important character is dead, she could only learn about him in the third person, from people who don't know her, don't love her. It seemed really disjointed and as you all know, it kept me from writing. That and the fact that I didn't know what she looked like.

But then I thought - what if her brother wasn't dead. What if he's not dead, but he's dying. Of AIDS. Which is why he was estranged from his family - being gay did not comport with his parents' religious beliefs. So they shunned him. So he reaches out, now, to his estranged sister to commission her to write his eulogy. So Marlowe leaves her small town and her conservatively religious upbringing behind, and goes to San Francisco, and meets this gay, dying brother. And they get to know each other, under the context of her writing his eulogy. And he dies. But it's good, because getting to know this unknown brother, the first gay man she's ever met, the first eulogy subject she's met before they died, opens her up to this entirely new life - one where love is just love - and God must be okay with it. At least the God she believes in is okay with it. It's as much about finding out who she is as it is about finding out who the brother is.

This gave me a much-needed kick in the ass. I rewrote the beginning of the book again and include it here. Read if you like. Now that I know where I'm going, I'm just so excited about it. I can't even tell you.

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Final Words

Marlowe slipped through the door at the side of the church just as the funeral began. She stayed behind the rough marble wall, hidden from the handful of mourners clustered in front of the altar. There she stood, concealed like a spy, waiting to hear her words out loud.

She peeked around the wall, getting a glance at the altar. Mrs. Ida Lister lay still in the open casket - the ivory silk lining gleaming in an otherwise gray cold church on a gray cold day. Marlowe half expected it to be lined in crimson red. She smiled to herself. Now that would be something.

As the priest spoke about life and death and better places, Marlowe slipped behind the wall again and thought back to when she first met Mrs. Lister. It was three days after her death, when her daughter Patricia called. She was given Marlowe's name by Walter Cayton, owner and operator of Cayton's Funeral Home.

She spoke her words tenatively at first, turning statements into questions. "Mr. Cayton gave me your number? He said you could help me write a eulogy?" She sighed, then softly stated, "See, my mother just died."

Thirty minutes later, Marlowe and Patricia met over coffee and that is when Marlowe was introducted to Mrs. Lister. Patricia was nervous, clutching at the delicate chain around her neck, sliding the gold cross back and forth, back and forth. "This is just so strange," she said to Marlowe, who just nodded. "I am so bad with words - and I want her to be remembered right."

Marlowe put down her coffee cup, picked up her pen and notebook, and asked, "What made your mother happy, Mrs. Armando?"

Patricia stopped fiddling with her necklace then, and folded both hands in her lap. She began to smile as tears welled up in her eyes. She then began to talk about her mother.

Marlowe stole another glance, and watched her new client approached the pulpit and read the words she hired Marlowe to write.

"My mother was a woman of simple joys. She loved the autumn, and waited in anticipation all year for the colors to change. She loved her crossword puzzles, insisting on completing them in pen up until the week before she died. But the thing she loved the most was watching the Cincinnati Reds every baseball season."

Patricia took a deep breath, just as Marlowe instructed her. "One thing to remember, Mrs. Armando," she said when giving her the final draft, "there is no need to rush. Speak slowly, and clearly. Don't forget to breathe. And don't be nervous. You're just sharing some thoughts with friends."

Patricia continued. "Her hearing had deteriorated, so the baseball games were a pure delight to her: no complicated plot to follow, no heavy dialogue to hear. She could just watch the action unfold, and cheer with the rest of the fans when a ball was hit over the fence.

"Every morning she would putter down her driveway in her housecoat and slippers to get the newspaper. She always read the sports page first, drinking her morning tea and eating her cinnamon toast. She knew the players better than some of her oldest friends - not only their statistics, but also their personal lives. Those times we watched the games together, she would point to a player approaching the plate, readying himself to hit the ball. 'See this one?' she would say to me, 'This one has five children - all in Catholic school. Can you imagine the expense?' She'd laugh and reach for another peppermint starlight, her favorite candy she kept in a china dish next to her easy chair.

"Last Christmas, after all of the presents were opened and all of the kids had scattered to play with their new toys, it was just me and Mom then, sitting on the couch admiring the fire crackling and popping in the fireplace, watching the Christmas lights twinkle on the Christmas tree. It was finally peaceful in a day full of shouts of joy and excitement. I asked my mom if there was anything in life she wanted to do, anything in life she hadn't gotten to yet. She smiled, and softly told me, 'What I really want to do, before I die, is go to an opening game. This year would be heavenly, what with the new stadium and all.'

"We took her to that opening day, the first game at the new Great American Ball Park. She wore a giant Reds t-shirt over her blouse, and her favorite Reds baseball cap over her tight, grey curls. Though she half-heartedly protested, we bought every souvenier we could, every pennant, miniature bat and baseball. We even got her a giant foam hand, which she wore throughout the game, raising it high and saying, 'We're number one!'"

The guests laughed out loud at the image of tiny Mrs. Lister waving her giant red foam hand. She was fully alive again, in their minds. The piece was definitely working. Patricia smiled, and then began to laugh. Her eyes were sparkling, for just a moment. She took another deep breath, and continued.

"The look on my mother's face that day reminded me of a black and white photo of her I have tucked in the corner of my mirror. It was of when she was a little girl, in front of her childhood home, surrounded by her brothers and sisters, swinging on a tire."

Marlowe smiled. This was not in the original eulogy. Patricia was better with words than she believed.

"A couple of days before her passing, she waved me over to her bedside. She said to me, 'I'm ready to go see heaven now.' Through my tears, I asked if she was scared. 'Scared? No,' she said. 'I'm excited to see it. It will be just lovely.' She didn't say much after that, and two days later, she fell asleep and drifted to heaven.

"I imagine her in a place where all sounds are clear and bright, where peppermint starlights hang from the trees, and where baseball season doesn't end.

"I end with a qoute from a baseball player from another team, Jackie Robinson, who said, 'A life is not important except in the impact it had on other lives.'

"Well, Mom, you must be one of the most important people in the world, because you have impacted my life, my family's life, and the lives of everyone here, so greatly. We will all miss you so much."

The guests were quiet now, hopefully remembering their own stories with Mrs. Lister. Marlowe smiled. Mrs. Lister was brought back to life, for only a few moments. It was the best a eulogy writer could hope for.

xoxo A.