Writings by Solange
[bumpng up since no comments from the other day, and i think it's important enough to warrant another try]

we met through a yahoo writer's group...ironically enough, she posted a poem about the heartfelt gush of thanks she experienced when she saw the wrecked car her son had walked away from. the poem alluded to that "phone call" that every parent dreads...i totally related to her poem, and wrote to her about an incident when my oldest son john was about 14, and a manhattan beach lifeguard called me at work when he scagged himself in the leg one day. how the caller seemed to slow his words as he announced who he was until nearly panicked i shrieked, "Is my son all right!" - how i gave that lifeguard a quick education on how to approach parents when calling regarding their children. how it was easy to feel so thankful knowing that our children are simply the most precious of all.

the day after we exchanged emails inspired by my friend's poem celebrating her son's escape from a brush with death, my daughter was murdered. i was informed of her death by my ex-husband, via telephone.

it must have been a year or close to it before we both went back through our emails to verify that we indeed had shared this communication the very night before that dreaded call rang in my living room. how justified the emotions of the elated mother whose child has miraculously escaped from a potentially deadly wreck without a scratch. how validated is the dread at the ring of the phone when civilized people have all gone to bed.

she's been a true angel; she kept us alive. gave me a job for which she overpaid me extravagantly when i was too devastated to do for myself or my young son. i always describe her as my benefactor/employer, but in reality she is a great and wonderful friend, writer, champion, mother, poet.

in 2001 when bekah first died she lived in las vegas; last year she moved to florida. this weekend her new home in fort pierce was, as she described it to me, "totaled." now her kids are in NY and she is in a hotel room with a similarly displaced friend and i would really love to help her back just a little bit.

Entering Spirit is her book. if you click on the link and buy solange's book i guarantee you won't be sorry. It's a polished, fully illustrated [with fine art from an artist solange found and courted in order to pursue her vision for this book] book of poems that express my friend, her faith, her love, her spirit. she is beautiful and as i write is spinning in shock many miles from her children; yet yesterday when i spoke to her, she was comforting me instead of the other way around. "the kids are all right," she said, "and I went insane with frances. Why are you crying barbara?" she left a message on my machine after i had done the same, "You have to laugh..." as she went on with details about the destruction to her home and belongings, the fact that she is in FL after having sent the kids to NY, etc., the steady maniacal laughing of her friend in the background made it all seem surreal. i think this barrage of natural disasters, in the form of back to back to back hurricanes, and the loss of just about everything, must engender initial responses similar to those experienced during a time of tragedy. i think that the loss of a home and the complete disruption of the life of a family qualifies as a tragedy. yes the kids are all right, and if i could get bekah back i'd sign up to lose my home in a hurricane every month for the rest of my life, but still. a tragedy, a disaster, and as with most of the victims of any such occurrence, these people did not deserve this. i want to help.
consider buying her book? thank you

- posted by barbara @ 10/03/2004 02:07:00 PM