I'm Not Dead (Tara Taylor Quinn)

This is me. I'm fourteen. Up in the hills of Michigan on a day of summer vacation. A perfect day. My best friend was there. We had a picnic basket full of goodies. Quiet. Privacy. And a bag of Harlequin Presents that we could read to our hearts content. I can still feel that day. The breeze on my face. The sound of the leaves rustling in the hundred year old trees, the birds chirping. I can still see the pinpoints of sunshine as they break through the dimmer light surrounding me under the many acre blanket of shade created by those trees. I can feel the freedom. And the security and happiness of having a best friend. Of not being alone.

I own the cabin now, together with my brother, that we were at that summer - and every summer of my growing up. I still visit those hills and feel the coolness of that shade. Those hills are one of the first places I took my husband last year shortly after he and I found each other after a thirty year separation. The best friend, to my heart's despair, is gone. She was killed in a car accident just weeks before her fortieth birthday.

I recently had a discussion during which I was told that the girl that I was when I was younger is dead. For a split second, if that long, I pondered the statement. I've pondered it a lot since. And I still feel and think the exact same way as I did in that first split second. EXCUSE ME!!! Followed by, who the hell made you God? And ending with, a very calm knowing that 'you are just wrong.'

A lot of times when we hear things that are difficult to hear, our initial reaction is denial. We put up defenses and fight against difficult truths. Depending on how good we are at this denial thing, we might even manage to go on without thinking of the statement again. Usually, however, those words will repeat themselves in our minds - generally at the most inopportune times like the middle of the night when one is trying to sleep - and eventually, we will most likely hear some truth in them. Slowly, we might even begin to accept them and maybe even use them as a catalyst to make changes for the better.

And then, every once in a while, we hear something that we deny simply because it is not true. Because there is no truth to be had. Those words might continue to repeat themselves, even in those inopportune moments, and still, they remain completely untrue.

Today, I have a little hand up in the air. 'Excuse me, I'm right here,' the girl within me feels compelled to say. 'I'm not dead. If I were your words wouldn't have hurt me so much. I might be silent, I might not have accomplished much, but I am very much alive.'

And something else occurs to me, too. Even when the difficult words we hear are not true, we might need to make some changes. The girl inside of me is very much alive. Very much not dead. But there's a reason she appears dead to those outside of me.

I have been living my life without her. She got hurt. She didn't know how to cope with that. She let me down. And so I wizened up. The way to not get hurt like that again, my wise self said, was to just stop letting that young girl's heart dictate my journey. And as I walled off her heart, I forgot to let that girl have any say at all. I've been so busy learning and deliberately choosing and accomplishing that I didn't let her do any of the things she loved to do. I haven't given her her due. Her time. She loved to play the guitar. I quit that in college. She loved to sing in choirs. I started to hyperventilate on stage and quit that, too. She loved to sky dive. I saw the dangers in that and haven't been up in thirty years. She loved motorcycles. And then her brother died and I haven't been on a bike since.

She used to read a book a day. From the time she was fourteen and discovered Harlequin romances at the grocery store check out she was hooked. She read at least one romance novel every single day. No matter what else the day required, she would find a way to work a full book into every day. On a perfect day she read several. She was a fast reader, even then so this isn't as time consuming as it sounds, but the point is, she did something purely for the fact that it gave her joy. I'm not a teenager anymore. I write those books now. But does that mean I can't still find the teen aged joy in simply, without responsibility, reading them?

I recently received a series of books to read for a contest I'm judging. As I unpacked the box, I faced the major responsibility and time commitment and tried to figure out how I was going to do the job justice. That's all I thought about. I have this many pages to read by this date, I have to put aside the time to make certain that I give each book it's due, to judge conscientiously. I'm looking at a pile of romances, and I have not one thought about the fact that I actually get to read! And not just one romance, but a pile of them!

So...I picked up a book. I have to say, as far as romances go, this particular book was truly not good. As far as writing goes, it was truly not good. I won't bore you with the details, but I can give one that will give you some indication of what I mean. The heroine was on a trip to see an ailing sister and the author couldn't remember what city her heroine was heading to. It changed. More than once. This was only one of numerous such happenings. Now, my point here isn't to trash a book. Because here's the thing - as bad as that book was, technically speaking, I took such pleasure in reading it! I was reading again. Alive.

Most of you know that over the past year my daughter has chosen to cut off all contact with me. I understand hurting hearts and anger and issues that need to be worked out and I love her completely and my job has always been to take care of her, to see to her best interests, so I succumb to the silence, as painful as this is to do, to give her what she says she needs. Space and time and silence. Months go by. Still nothing. And so, after much conversation and praying and searching, I begin contact again. And recently received word from her that nothing has changed. There is still to be complete silence. She treats me as though I am dead. I have one response to that. I am not dead.

I just read this morning that Brokeback Mountain star, Heath Ledger, passed away yesterday afternoon, apparently without foul play or signs of suicide. He was in his apartment, snoring in his bedroom at 12:30 and at 3:30 he was dead. At the age of 28. And I wonder about the people he left behind. Is there someone, today, sitting someplace, devastated because they didn't get a chance to fully love him? Because they didn't get a chance to make amends, to say one last thing, to spend more time with him, to tell him something that they felt but for whatever reason didn't bring themselves to say? Is there anyone who needed closure and now will never have it? Or someone who could have given him the love he needed but will now never have the chance to lavish that on him? Or who could have been blessed by his love but chose to have problems with him instead and will now not have that blessing?

I think about the twenty year old marine who was killed - and the mother who, when she thought her daughter was alive, talked about her inability to tell the truth as though this made her daughter somehow less. News reports said that their last conversation was a heated one. And this same mother, once she found out that her daughter had been murdered, now talks about how her daughter's struggle with truth made her vulnerable. I'm guessing she regrets many things. I'm guessing she thought she had a lifetime with that girl and that they had all the time in the world to heal whatever harsh words were between them. I'm guessing we all tend to think that way.

Today I'm giving the keys of my heart to the girl inside me. She's going to drive. I have no idea where we'll end up, what journey she'll take me on, what we're going to do. But you can be certain that it'll involve giving that heart to those she loves. After all, what else in life is more important than that? When I was eighteen, all I wanted was to love and be loved. What perfect conditions or possessions or activities could possibly mean more than loving and being loved? The girl in me was naive. She didn't know a lot of things. How to express herself or how to deal with some of life's challenges. She got hurt. And scared. She was stopped in her tracks and didn't trust herself anymore. She made some dumb decisions. She hid away. But she was pretty smart, too. I'm going to start trusting her again. Now. This minute. Because I don't want to be dead. I want to be alive. Fully, completely alive.

Today, all I can see is that life is a precious thing. The most precious thing. Whether we allow ourselves, our hearts, to fully live, or we show others that we are glad that they are alive, lets try to remember that we aren't dead. But that we could be.