Well, it's time to jump back on that horse.
It has been almost 3 years since I published my book and now I think I am finally ready to work on something else and something completely different: a love story.
More details to come but below you will find the first 497 words.
Let me know what you think. Or not.
If you don't want to read it, you can just scroll down to the bottom and look at the picture of Ms. Frizzle being a model for the "Dog Days of Summer" catalog, which will not be appearing in your mailbox anytime soon.
I'm excited to embark on another literary journey and I look forward to sharing it with you.
"Whoever survives a test, whatever it may be, must tell the story. That is his duty.” ― Elie Wiesel
I think I always knew I would out live Jack. Morbid as this may sound now – it’s not something that I dwelled on – it was just something that I knew. Still, I never thought of how lonely it would be without him. He had filled my life for so many years. Sixty-four of them to be exact, and to not be able to talk with him, ask him questions, have a hug or a kiss seemed more than I could bear lately. I revisited some daily diaries I kept to look back on our lives together to see if that would help my loneliness. Unfortunately, most of the diaries just documented all the illnesses, accidents, and medical problems he had towards the end of his life.
I then remembered the metal box in my closet that had been there for so many years. This box contained the letters Jack had written me when he was in the Marines during World War II. Over the years, I had opened it and reread a few but had never read all of them. What bothers me now is that it never occurred to me to get them out and for us to read them together. How much more meaningful they would have been to see his reactions to his words all these years later.
Nevertheless, I hunted down the box. Of course, it was locked. I couldn’t find the key so I pried it open with a screwdriver and immediately started reading the 290 letters it contained. After reading them all, I felt I couldn’t just lock them up again and never share their contents. What I am doing may not mean a thing to anyone else but me. It is his side of our lives for three years, and I can only guess what I was writing back to him. This is a compulsion of mine as I feel driven to get this all down in some order so that I can have our love story saved and maybe it will make its way to someone else. I thought reading the letters would me make very sad, but they have had the opposite effect. I have had a lot of good laughs out of them. They have also brought back many cherished memories that were buried very deep. And, of course, it made me grateful that I got to spend all this time with the love of my life, Jack Anderson.
Words cannot ever express the emptiness I feel without Jack, but these letters have filled a large void. Ours was a love story like no other. I would like to say unique, but then everyone on Earth is unique and their love story is solely theirs. Ours just happens to be ours. And I hope our story will help you remember yours.
All my best,
Elizabeth Anne Anderson
Ruff day at the home office for Ms. Frizzle.
I will persevere. I will keep moving forward. I will be the stream.
