The Universe often decrees a path that we never envision and all we have to do is open ourselves up to the possibilities and dreams do come true.
Today, I pinch myself. I have written and published my first book. It is a memoir about a time in my life I never dreamed I would even speak about, let alone write a book about. It took seven decades to sit down and write it, but the seed was planted many long years ago.
***
I have a distinct memory of summer, 1958 in my hometown on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi. School had let out and I was looking forward to countless lazy days with neighborhood friends. One game we had made up consisted of play-pretending we were our favorite movie characters, Tarzan and Jane, and favorite television stars Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. I always demanded I play the part of Jane and Dale, partly because I was bossy and often, I was the only girl playing with my brothers and boy cousins.
But best of all I looked forward to months of free time to read. Like my Daddy I was a bespectacled bookworm. My favorite books that year were the Laura Ingalls Wilder books introduced to us by my third-grade teacher. I planned to re-read all of them before summer was over.
I loved writing my own stories as much as reading books and always included illustrations. Hours alone were spent sprawled across my bed, drawing ladies in antebellum gowns, embellished with magnolias and roses. I named my characters Belle, Sarah, or Charlotte and they were always beautiful with loads of dashing suitors, who would soon expire in a bloody Civil War battle. They were Rebels, of course.
There would be morning walks to Back Bay with my younger brothers where we would set our crab nets, loll around on splintery piers, and dip in and out of the murky water. Hours later, sunburned and starving we would bring home blue crabs for Mama to boil. As she dropped them into a vat of scalding water we would scream along with the thrashing, hissing crabs. I always raced from the kitchen, covering my ears, but the memory of the crabs’ tortured demise never hindered my delight once they were boiled and dumped on the newspaper covered kitchen table for our lunch.
Another summer pleasure was when my brothers and I joined the neighborhood kids for late afternoon walks to buy snow cones at the neighborhood snowball mecca…Millie’s. There was nothing better on a sweltering summer evening than that smooth shaved ice, loaded with sugary syrup. My favorite was a chocolate/coconut combo… I can still taste it and feel the icy concoction as it coated my mouth and slid down my throat.
I would miss school, but I loved summer.
***
At the end of May it was my birthday. I was turning nine. No party was planned which was the norm in our home, but I knew Daddy would have stopped by Uncle Paul’s Electric Maid Bakery and picked up a delicious birthday cake. It would be topped with the decadent buttery frosting that Uncle Paul was known for in our town.
That afternoon after whiling away the afternoon at my neighbor Diane’s house, I ran into our back yard and stopped. There, holding hands and ambling towards Keegan’s Bayou in our back yard was Mama and Daddy. I watched as their heads leaned into each other. My Daddy loved Mama beyond measure and sometimes it almost hurt to watch them. They both turned as I ran towards them, interrupting their precious time alone, butting in, wanting to be part of whatever they shared.
“Hey, Mama! Hey Daddy! I’m home!”
“Daddy brought you a special birthday surprise. Did you see it in your room?” Mama smiled.
Making a swift U-turn I ran towards the house, slamming the back screen door, and heading straight to my bedroom.
In the corner of my room set a dark mahogany desk. Small, with drawers and shelves above it. There was even a matching chair tucked neatly beside it. A thrill ran through me. This was the very best birthday present I had ever received. My own desk.
Slowly running my hand across the grain of the wood, I marveled. No one in our family gave such extravagant gifts for a birthday. At once I felt special as well as a bit guilty. What would my brothers say?
At my bedroom door, my parents stood watching me. Gentle smiles lit their faces.
“I love it!” tears threatened to spill from my eyes.
“It was your Daddy’s idea.”
Daddy grinned. “Plus, there’s a cake from Electric Maid.”
I rushed to Daddy, hugging him. Never demonstrative, he shyly smiled.
“You can write a book one day Laura. I know you can.”
I hugged him tighter, already visualizing myself burning the midnight oil, writing non-stop with a fountain pen in a fancy notebook.
Less than ten years later, still a child myself, the heartbreaking loss of a secret newborn son to closed adoption changed the trajectory of my life, leaving me bereft and feeling I had no family. My parents had told me this was the right thing to do, and they truly believed, along with our pastor and my grandmother, it was. I would go many years feeling my parents had let me down and feeling quiet anger towards them. Pulling away from all I knew and loved, I would travel far from home determined not to be part of my family, only to return to them years later a wiser and more forgiving me.
Yet even during those hard years I would never forget that moment in time and how safe and loved I had felt when my Daddy believed in me and thought I could do just about anything.
“Write a book one day.” He had said.
And I did.