Puddle of Grace

What I learned about an old church and an eclectic group of deceased neighbors in England helped me achieve grace in the midst of feeling like I was drowning.

“Today I found my face
Floating in a puddle of grace
Porcelain doll with cracks to mend,
Oh, Mama, I found a friend”
Amy Jo Johnson “Puddle of Grace”

I don’t know what it is about London. There’s something about that city that seized me from the moment I first visited it. I saved my money and took a solo trip there just after I turned 21. I vividly recall sitting in the back of a black taxi from Victoria Station, speeding down the streets (on the wrong side of the road), heading for the tiny one-room flat I had rented for two weeks in the Kensington area. I stared out the window and marveled at row after row of Victorian buildings standing like sentinels, the crowded sidewalks, and the double deckers buses rushing down the streets. I knew Dorothy had exited Kansas.

After settling into my apartment, I ventured out to visit Sainsbury, a grocery store several blocks from where I stayed. My walk took me past a small brown brick church sitting at the corner of a residential street and a busy thoroughfare. St. Stephen’s Church struck me with its simple beauty and became a touchstone point on my daily walks to the subway station. I knew I was entering or leaving my neighborhood when I saw the church.  

At times, I longed to go inside. Not to attend a service but just to see the inside of a scenic British house of worship I had come to think of as my neighbor. My youthful rebellious nature did not allow me to throw open the doors and walk in. Me? Too cool for church. I took a photo of it and, years later, regretted not checking out the interior. 

The other night I found myself thinking about this church. In fact, I’ve been thinking about London a whole lot these days. I plan to go back, although I’ve got some hills to climb before I’m ready. I’m working on improving my health, continuing to rebuild my writing career in order to have a healthy vacation savings fund, and more. In the meantime, I’m enjoying using the internet to access my old haunts. 

I googled the name of the church and found it had an unexpected history. Some fifty years before I came to call this area my temporary home, a man named Thomas, a native of St. Louis, who had become a British citizen in 1927, moved close to the church. He found himself enchanted by how this house of the holy took him in and provided him with comfort and guidance during such trials as a divorce, the death of a subsequent wife, and a crisis of faith. He eventually became a senior layman there and helped shepherd the congregation. A year before my own birth, Thomas died of emphysema at his Kensington home. 

Why the story of this man takes up a page of the church’s website surprised me. The man’s full name is Thomas Stearns Eliot, and he was a writer. Like me. For those who don’t know him, T.S. Eliot’s most well-known work is a collection of poetry called Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. This book became the basis of one of the most famous pieces of musical theatre: Cats. He had ties to the magical world of theatre. Like me. We were neighbors of a sort, although we walked the same streets at different times. 

This unexpected discovery about my location all those years ago wasn’t the only one. I recently read Carrie Fisher’s autobiography The Princess Diarist, in which she mentioned the location of the flat she stayed in while filming Star Wars. Being an enormous fan of hers, I hit up Google maps and discovered that just ten years before I hit the London streets, Princess Leia had lived half a dozen blocks from my flat. I had walked by her street a few times, having no idea of its cinematic history. She was another writer, like me.

Maybe a year ago, I read an article about Freddy Mercury, the irrepressible singer for Queen, that gave an address for the home he used to occupy in London while I was there. Had he invited me over for tea, it would’ve been a three-block walk for me. 

Connections, tied to a posh area of the hub of the U.K. An infamous poet with a history I knew nothing about at the time and whose very footsteps I walked in. Did Carrie Fisher visit the pub around the corner from her flat that I frequented? It got me thinking about the connections we have to others, even when we lack awareness of them, as well as connections with ourselves, particularly as we wade through challenging times.

I already know where I will stay when I go back to London. The same borough of Kensington, both familiar yet updated for the new century, with inviting shops, pubs, and restaurants I want to visit. As I sat there the other night, reading about my little church, I listened to a song playing on repeat. A tune I used to love but had not heard in years. Puddle of Grace by Amy Jo Johnson, a young singer-songwriter who started to make some noise in the late 90s. It’s emotional and hit oh so close to home as I listened to the song over and over. 

Unexpectedly, I dissolved into tears, completely overwhelmed by my need to get back to London. I would have made a deal with the devil to step through my laptop screen and stand on the street in front of St. Stephen’s Church. Not for religious reasons, but because it would mean I could skip the mountains of bullshit I must scale before I can travel that far again. Why couldn’t Scotty beam me up and gently set me down in a metropolis I call nirvana, thus ending my crying jag? 

Lost in my puddle of tears, I realized I was also taking up real estate in a puddle of grace. I have purposely moved out of an old comfort zone in order to reach the goals I set, including one to travel far again. And the funny thing about leaving a comfort zone is that – get this! – sometimes it makes me uncomfortable. Yet, there’s something about that; something graceful. Granted, it often feels akin to watching a five-year-old practicing ballet moves, tripping over her own feet, and charitably calling it “graceful”. Still, it counts as movement. Dancing through one puddle at a time.

The Librarian

An essay about how I began writing for fun as a kid, lost my way, got back on track, then accidentally became a time-traveling librarian.

My first effort at writing creatively happened when I was 11 and tried to write a novel about a cop named Tim, his girlfriend, and his partner. I put pen to notebook paper and spilled out maybe a couple of dozen pages of drivel in my childish handwriting. 

In high school, I started many other stories, throwing myself into each one, but never finishing any of them. Alone in my bedroom or bored in a classroom with a distracted teacher, I would feverishly handwrite the tales of whatever world I wanted to invent and invite others into. So much of it was an alternate universe starring a fantasy version of me – thinner and more popular – and some guy playing my romantic co-star. A real “fox”, as the vernacular went back then. 

I wrote about high school students, a teacher in Little House on the Prairie times, a touring rock band, a female disc jockey, and, in one misguided effort, a romance novel wannabe about a woman kidnapped by pirates who fell in love with two of her captors. Mind you, I never finished anything I started writing. The enthusiasm would wane, and after a break, I’d feverishly begin another story.

Around 17, I segued into writing poetry. Bad poetry. I’m not being self-deprecating. I read every word of it a few years ago, something like 80 poems, and most of them were clunkers. But that doesn’t bother me because effort counts for something. 

Throughout my 20s and part of my 30s, I wrote on and off. I completed a play but mostly started and then abandoned a host of projects. Then, I just stopped writing. It felt pointless, and my mind bore no fruit when it came to ideas for something to write about. 

Eight years ago, I decided to get serious about my writing. I swore off all the bullshit excuses I kept telling myself about how I didn’t have time to write or that I would do it as soon as I finished (fill-in-the-blank event that would come and go). On New Year’s Day 2015, I started writing a novel and I didn’t stop until I completed it. I set up a blog and wrote short stories and essays and posted them regularly. Over time, it began to pay off. I am now a published author, thanks to being part of an anthology book called What She Wrote. I became a regular contributor to a literary magazine and enjoy having a small but merry band of regular readers for my blog. 

January of last year marked the seven-year anniversary of my decision to work hard on getting my writing out there in the world. It also began to garner attention I never could have predicted. In short, what I wrote last year attracted people from my past and drew them back into my orbit after decades-long absences. 

In January, I wrote Family Reunion, an essay about randomly meeting a young man at a party when we were both teenagers. I had recently discovered he now co-hosted a podcast about old-school heavy metal music, along with another man who ran in my same circle of folks during that era of my life. I nervously sent them a link to my essay, feeling foolish but determined to put my work out there in new and somewhat scary ways. My effort rewarded me with both Jason and Dave coming back into my life after an absence of 30-plus years. Not only that, but they shared my essay on their social media, and some of the very bands I wrote about in it hit the “like” button for my words. I relished the payoff I achieved from this. 

In March, I wrote My Indiana Girl about the death of my close friend from high school. On a whim, I sent the link to her still grieving husband, who I also had known back in those days but had not spoken to since my junior year. I did not know if my sudden reappearance would be welcome, but I chose to take that risk. Not only did I receive a sweet, charming email in response, but I also ended up having a three-hour phone call with this man that helped jumpstart a change in how I view my life. The conversation gifted me with the ability to stop judging my life story and embrace the road that took me from those long ago teenage years to where I am now.

In documenting my past through single-chapter memoir essays, my writing pulled some of the people from my youth back into my life. People I thought I’d never cross paths with again. I marveled at these occurrences and the gifts they afforded me. 

In May, I wrote A Child’s Coffin, an angry and emotional essay about the slaughter of school children in Uvalde, Texas. To my utter shock, days later I received a message from someone who had read it and wanted to get in touch. Through channels I do not understand, my essay somehow ended up on a Reddit thread read by a number of English people. Among them was my ex-boyfriend, with whom I lived in the U.K. when I was 21 and he was 23. 

Now I had moved beyond just putting my work in front of someone from my past and finding it unexpectedly drew them back in. I had moved into throwing another collection of verbiage over the proverbial transom and it somehow, against all odds, traveled to the other side of the world and landed in front of a man it never occurred to me I would connect with again.

I’ll be honest; I don’t fully understand what it all means. I’ve been mulling it over for months, this pattern of people from a lifetime ago reappearing in 2022 because of what I wrote. Call this hippie-dippie or puerile bullshit, but after much contemplation, I believe I’ve entered or created some sort of energy field that attracts those from my past with my writing in what has so far been nothing but positive experiences. Each encounter has led to me examining that era of my life with an unjaundiced eye. Through each journey through time, touching base again with each of these souls, I understand who I was and who I am now better than I ever could manage previously. 

It’s like we had some unspoken and unknown agreement all those years ago to circle back together in our 50s and compare notes. A sort of “See you on the other side!” promise that doesn’t involve death as the catalyst to reunite. 

It occurred to me that I’m like Mike Hanlon, a character in Stephen King’s novel It. As a child, Mike was part of the Losers Club, a group of kids who witnessed the scary, serial-killer clown familiar to readers and movie fans. Years later, all the kids had left their town of Derry except Mike, who now worked as a librarian. When the time was right (sadly, in this case, the return of Pennywise the clown), Mike reached out to all of the members of his old gang. 

They gathered together again because of his communication and compared notes about what they’d been doing since they parted company as teenagers and young adults. They talked about their old plans for their adult lives and who they ended up becoming instead. They relayed their stories, their unconsummated dreams, the goals they accomplished, and their fears that did and did not come true. 

In short, they compared notes on who they were and who they became.  Just like I’ve been doing with people from my past. Something I didn’t dream possible just a minute before each event occurred. 

Now, I fully surrender. In 2022, my writing took on an energy, and the universe rewarded my willingness to send it out there in new and brave ways. At this point, I surrender to it. Life comes at you in mysterious ways, and who am I to question what forces came into play? I’m just enjoying the ride and the gifts this trip has brought me. 

I will continue to sit at my desk and use words to connect with the present, the past, and the future. If it brings more people I thought were long gone back into my life, I will throw open the front door and greet them. We’ve all got stories to tell, and I am happy to be the librarian that catalogs them.

Turner’s All-Nite Drugstore Theatre

An essay about a small theatre in San Antonio that impacted a lot of lives in the short amount of time it was open and changed who I used to be.

“Let’s do something different for my birthday,” I requested. And so we did. The local newspaper reviewed the bizarrely titled one-act play called Vampire Lesbians of Sodom. It was running at a theatre down on the St. Mary’s Strip owned by a man named Jerry. The reviewer said the play featured a surprisingly small amount of vampires and lesbians, and no sodomy, and was well worth the night out for patrons who enjoyed ribald humor in a no-frills, grassroots theatre environment.

My gang and I arrived having indulged in a little (lot) weed smoking, and we all enjoyed the show. It was silly in places and laugh-out-loud funny in others. I wondered about the day-to-day lives of the raggedy group of cast members. The whole idea of them leaving the daily grind of their jobs and lives at the door on weekend nights and playing dress-up for a crowd of maybe fifty people seemed terribly romantic to me. The memory of the show played in my mind for weeks to follow.

Fast forward several months to a winter night in 1990. “Want to do something this weekend?” asked my friend Carol.

“Sure. I read about this new theatre that just opened and they’re doing a bunch of Woody Allen one-act plays. Want to check it out?”

(Note: this was before we found out about Allen’s proclivity for his stepdaughter. At the time, Woody Allen’s plays felt like nothing but a fun choice for a night out.)

I giggle now when I remember we wondered if there might be a dress code at the theatre. We went in jeans and t-shirts, hoping for the best. We need not have worried.

Turner’s All Nite Drugstore Theatre stood on Woodlawn near IH-10. The newspaper article announcing its opening detailed the origin of the unusual name. An independently owned drugstore (that was indeed open all night) had occupied the retail space for years. Upon its closure, a young turk named Eddie had taken over the space to open a theatre similar to the one I recently visited. Shortly after opening, the two theatres shared many of the same cast and crew in their various shows.

I have a vivid imprint in my memory of pulling open one of the double glass doors of Turner’s, walking in, and taking in the tiny space. The lobby, concession, sound booth, audience seating, and stage were all in one main room with no real division between anything. It looked like someone strung together the whole outfit on a five-dollar budget, a roll of scotch tape, and a prayer.

I couldn’t have fallen in love with the joint any faster.

“Well, I’m home,” my brain whispered to me. My real love of theatre was born on that chilly night.

A chatty married couple named Patty and Hector ran the box office. They explained that the theatre didn’t have the money to buy a liquor license yet, so they instituted a “beer by donation” policy. Carol & I tossed some singles in the donation jar, which earned us two Olympia beers that to this day I associate with the theatre.

The whole place held maybe sixty seats. We chose two underneath a handwritten sign taped to the bulkhead. We laughed, realizing the writer meant to warn people to “Watch Your Head”, but instead mistakenly wrote, “Wash Your Head”. This sign sort of set the tone for the entire theatre. Hastily done, not incredibly professional, but always well-meaning and with a healthy sense of humor.

The lights dimmed on a half-filled audience, and theatre-on-a-shoestring filled the room. The plays were interesting, with some performances standing out more than others. When the lights came up, we didn’t leave. We hung around for a good couple of hours, donated for more beer, sat around on folding chairs, and chatted with Eddie and some of the other actors and crew.

By the time I walked out the front door sometime after midnight, I knew I wanted a second date with this place.

Carol and I returned for a second round of one-act plays Turner’s put on. We drank more cheap beer, sat with audiences that ranged from enthusiastic to confused, and hung out after the show. We probably put in half a dozen appearances over the next several weeks. We would do little things to help the production along, like walk a couple of blocks through the sketchy neighborhood to buy more beer for the concession stand (sometimes using our own money). I made pots of java in a sketchy old Mr. Coffee for the audience while Carol handed out programs. We became unofficial volunteers.

Truth be told, it was hard not to want to help. Eddie and his trusty sidekick Steve were in their 20s, doing what they could to keep the theatre going with a minimal budget. Eddie’s parents helped out, but Eddie and Steve worked towards the goal of creating a bustling new voice in the theatre scene that earned them a decent living.

During this time, some of the Turner’s actors also starred in the Saturday late-night production of the vampire play that initially drew me into their circle. Many nights after closing up shop at Turner’s, several of us piled in our cars and drove a couple of miles to Jerry’s new theatre on Main. I lost count of how many times I saw this play with an ever-rotating cast, but I’d pay big bucks to go back in time and see it again. 

One night, Eddie announced his next production: a play called Psycho Beach Party. Based on the 1960s Gidget films about innocent teens on a beach, in this version, Gidget had multiple personalities that included a murderer, making for a dark comedy. Eddie asked me to be the stage manager. Floored and flattered, I said yes.

For the next several weeks, I rushed home from my secretarial job at the University of Texas in San Antonio, changed clothes, ate a quick dinner, then drove down Blanco Road to Turner’s for three-hour rehearsals. I can’t say I had the true duties of a stage manager, due to the loose way the theatre ran. Eddie taught me to run sound for the show, cueing up and playing the songs between each scene and during intermission. I thoroughly enjoyed my volunteer work. 

Opening night was a trip; I felt like the play was partly my baby, too. The reaction was mixed. There were packed nights, half-empty nights, and a couple of nights where people walked out, looking baffled or disgusted as they made their exits. And we were fine with that. Turner’s stage offerings were not for everyone.

After Psycho Beach Party ended, the Little Theatre That Could continued with more productions, and I attended some of those. By this point, finances had become dire for Eddie. He and Steve had given up their apartment and were living in the theatre. Almost a year of putting on plays and trying to make a real imprint in the San Antonio theatre community had not gotten Eddie where he wanted to be. At the time, San Antonio, despite being one of the ten largest cities in the U.S., was shamefully behind in hosting a thriving theatre scene with a lot of variety. This made procuring a regular audience – not to mention one who would pay higher ticket prices – difficult.

To be fair, Eddie also made some poor choices along the way. Income was often funneled into weed and other things, and casting your friends when they aren’t necessarily the best fit for a character hindered him on a few occasions. I say that with no malice; the man was doing his best to keep his head above water, and I immensely admired what he accomplished in a short amount of time. Still, it proved difficult for some of us to watch the mistakes made, knowing we could not influence the outcome.

Turner’s then put on a seriously low-budget production of Phantom of the Opera. I planned to make an effort to get down there to see it. Before I could, I had a last phone call with Eddie. Before we hung up, he said, “I love you, babe”. Very Hollywood-sounding, but quite sweet, too.

One afternoon soon after, Carol called me. “Are you sitting down?” is never a good opening line to a conversation. I sat down on my bed.

“Eddie is dead. He hanged himself,” she said.

I remember my mind focusing on an odd thing, as the brain often does when startled by a shocking event. Carol had said “hanged”. Most people say “hung”. The shock consumed me so much that my mind tried to hang onto something tangible, like correct grammar, so as not to let in the meteor of darkness that Eddie had died. By his own hand.

Carol had to work that night, so I went down to Turner’s by myself. I walked into the tiny theatre and just stood there. It was filled with people, all in mourning. I didn’t speak to one person that night or afterward that said they knew Eddie was suicidal. He had been in the theatre alone when he died. Steve returned from an errand and found Eddie hanging from the doorway of the backstage bathroom.

To this day, I still can’t wrap my head around it. A couple of people suggested maybe Eddie was trying to play a joke and it went horribly wrong. As morbid as it might sound, I weighed that as a possibility, because I figured if Eddie was going to do something so dramatic on purpose, he’d hang himself center stage.

At the end of the day, when someone takes their own life, the WHY of it is almost irrelevant. It doesn’t change the fact that the person is stone-cold dead. It leaves their loved ones with anger, confusion, sorrow, regrets about things said or not said, and a host of other emotions that either eventually do or do not resolve themselves.

After the funeral, Carol and I shopped for some food and beer to serve at the memorial at the theatre. It all felt surreal; a fugue state from which surely I would wake up. I made an appearance when the troupe embraced a “the show must go on” attitude, recasting the lead in Phantom (Eddie had originated the role), and trying to keep the theatre going. Steve took the reigns and moved to a new building, but it was too little, too late. Turner’s All-Nite Drugstore Theatre closed its doors for good.  

Years later, I drove through the neighborhood. The theatre was now a junk shop, and I went in to look around. I wasn’t sure who was the ghost: Eddie’s spirit or me? The shop owner asked if I was looking for anything in particular. Talk about a loaded question. I avoided the temptation to ask him, “Did you know someone important to me killed himself in your back room?” and left.

A few months later, thirty-something, the brilliant ABC drama, aired an episode about the death of a character on the show named Gary. His widow, who had only known him for about two years, said something eloquent about her now-dead husband.

“He changes you, then he goes.”

That was Eddie, in a nutshell. When he threw open the doors to Turner’s All-Nite Drugstore Theatre, he birthed in me a love of theatre. I’ve since seen several dozen local plays, as well as many Broadway touring shows in cities across Texas. 

Eddie changed me, then he went. 

I miss the Turner’s days. I miss some of the people, although thanks to social media, I keep up with some of them. And when we talk about those days, we always come to life in a vibrant way that only the Turner’s gang can understand. 

Love Me Tinder

A short story about taking a chance on making a connection with a stranger on New Year’s Eve.

“He lives near me, and I met him on Tinder. I’m sitting behind the Kohl’s in Wheeling, West Virginia, waiting on him.” 

Chloe hadn’t planned on sharing her spur-of-the-moment plans with anyone, but her friend Lucy had sent an unexpected text just minutes ago wishing her a happy new year. It left Chloe with a sudden need to confess her situation. Against her usually cautious nature, she had planned a daring rendezvous to liven up her otherwise barren romantic life. Her phone rang, causing her to jump in her seat. 

“Are you insane?” Lucy’s voice registered an octave higher than usual. “You’re meeting some guy from a hook-up app at midnight? How long have you known him?”

“About four hours,” Chloe replied.

“Chloe! You’re in some parking lot waiting on a stranger? Have you lost your ever-loving mind?”

“I know it’s sudden, but it’s also incredibly exciting. He’s younger, kind of looks like that surfer guy in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. And it’s not a hook-up site. You’re thinking of Grinder.”

“This is ridiculous. Go home. Tell him you want a proper first date.” 

“I’m being safe, I promise. We Face-Timed. He’s legit. Here, I’ll text you his name. He showed me his driver’s license when we were talking.” Chloe tapped out her message and tugged on her bra straps, making sure the girls were up and even. 

“This is you leaving a trail of breadcrumbs, Chloe. ‘Hey, if I die, this is who killed me.’ Please regain your sanity, woman.”

“Lucy, it’s fine. He’s divorced and he’s lonely, too. We’re meeting for a kiss and a glass of champagne. I think he’s here. I have to go. I’ll call you when I get home.” Chloe silenced her phone, dropped it in her purse, and unlocked the passenger side door. 

Tyler looked as delicious in person as he had on camera. Shoulder-length blonde hair and a face with lines burned into it from too much sun. He pulled a bottle of champagne from a Whole Foods bag, popped the cork, and slid into Chloe’s car. The next half hour passed like a scene from a movie Meg Ryan would’ve starred in 30 years ago. 

The two strangers muddled their way through a couple of minutes of small talk and drank from red plastic cups Tyler brought. Then, their guards tumbled down and they connected. Between sips of their bubbly beverage, they chatted about hope and new beginnings. They sang snippets of songs together, moving effortlessly from a Katy Perry hit to a Sinatra classic to a round of Auld Lang Syne. 

After polishing off their glasses of champagne, Tyler took Chloe’s hand. His baby blue eyes penetrated hers, causing a goofy grin to splash across her face.

“I’m so glad I took a chance tonight, Chloe. You have no idea how badly I needed a night to go my way for a change.” Tyler leaned in and they shared one perfect kiss. One that demanded an encore performance. 

Unknown to Chloe, Lucy had spent the past half hour blowing up her phone with repeated calls and texts. Pleas for Chloe to call her, text her, to offer any proof that she was safe. Lucy sat 1400 miles away in her hometown, and panic had taken over. After getting no response and feeling embarrassed but desperate, she dialed the Wheeling Police Department. The officer who answered the phone didn’t seem to take her seriously at first but finally agreed to send an officer through the Kohl’s parking lot. 

Chloe and Tyler huddled together and sang the final verse from The Last Resort, a deep cut from an Eagles album. Neither had a great singing voice, but the duet warmed Chloe more than the heat chugging from the vents of her car. 

Tyler stroked his finger on the steering wheel. “I know we said just a kiss and a drink, Chloe, but how do you feel about going for a short drive? We can decide where you want me to take you to dinner tomorrow.” 

“Sure, why not,” said Chloe. She drove about twenty feet before a police car pulled in front of her, blocking her path. “What the hell?”

“It’s probably just a mall cop. I guess technically we are trespassing,” replied Tyler. 

Two police officers emerged from the patrol car and asked a lot of questions. Chloe and Tyler sheepishly admitted to being relative strangers who made impetuous plans and assured the men that all was well. One cop ran a check on their IDs, while the other one confiscated their half-empty bottle of booze. He warned the couple that, romance be damned, they couldn’t remain on private property after hours. 

The mood now broken, Tyler promised to call Chloe the next day to firm up plans for their second date and drove off under the watchful eye of Wheeling’s finest. Chloe resisted the urge to flip off the cops as she drove away, resenting them for meddling in something just because they had nothing better to do in the small hours of the first day of the new year. 

Minutes later, Chloe drove into her driveway. She checked her phone and rolled her eyes as she skimmed the boatload of hysterical messages and calls Lucy sent her way. She quickly messaged that all was well and she would call the next day. Chloe refused to let Lucy’s paranoia overshadow the euphoria of how taking a chance had paid off so beautifully.

Several miles away, Tyler pulled into his garage and closed the door. He climbed out, popped the trunk of his car, and grabbed a khaki bag inside it. He unzipped the bag and rummaged through the dirty gym clothes on top. He tossed his fake ID, the one bought on the dark web that kept two policemen from knowing his real name, into the bag. It landed on top of a roll of Gorilla tape, a ball gag, a hunting knife, and a Polaroid camera. 

The first hours of his new year had not gone the way he planned, but he knew how to be patient. He would wipe his account on Tinder clean and start one on another dating app. Just as soon as he obtained another new identification and another burner phone. As far as Chloe and West Virginia law enforcement would know, Tyler dropped off the face of the earth. But Brent would live to hunt another day. 

Remember Tomorrow

An essay about reconnecting with someone from the past in order to have a better future.

Unchain the colors before my eyes
Yesterday’s sorrows, tomorrow’s white lies
Tears for remembrance, and tears for joy
Tears for somebody and this lonely boy
Iron Maiden “Remember Tomorrow”

Last March, I unexpectedly found out about the death of one of my best friends from high school. I wrote about the time I knew her in an essay called My Indiana Girl. Dixie fell in love with Steve, a fellow student of ours, in our junior year and went on to marry him and have a son. They remained happily married until she developed terminal cancer and passed away two years ago. 

I had not seen or spoken to Steve since I was 16 but wanted to extend my sympathies for his loss. I sent word to him via his brother’s social media, and Steve emailed me with a warm and friendly note. I responded and directed him to my essay about his beautiful, now-late wife. I felt nervous about sending it, not knowing if it might be seen as a welcome collection of memories or something awkward and painful. I made last year about taking risks in where I send my work, which empowered me to send the essay Steve’s way. To my delight and relief, he replied that same evening, thanking me for what I wrote and indicating his openness to continued contact with me. 

That night, I went to bed, and just before turning off the light, I checked my email one more time. I found a notification of a comment left on my blog. I read it and it left me speechless. Steve had shown his son what I wrote and he – this now 30-something man I had never met – felt compelled to let me know how much he treasured hearing stories about his mother when she was just a teenager. Dave said his mom never really talked about her life before she became an adult, and he felt happy to get a glimpse into who she was when I knew her. 

Not gonna lie here. The beauty of that moment made me cry so hard that I had to sit up and grab a box of tissues. The words I wrote to help tell the story of my friendship with someone I had not seen since we were still pretty much kids had not only reached her husband, but it had the kind of impact on their son I could have never dreamed about. 

Steve and I traded several emails and decided to get on the phone. The thought made me nervous, but it felt like an opportunity too great to pass up. I expected it would be a relatively short call and likely involve some nervousness and awkward moments of silence.

Instead, it ended up being a phone call that changed my life. 

Full moon is rising, the sky is black
I need your call, I’m coming back
The road is straight cast, wind’s in my eyes
The engine roars between my thighs
Judas Priest “Desert Plains”

In the early 1980s, when I knew Dixie and Steve, I lived in Plano, a town located north of Dallas. My family existed in turmoil for a variety of reasons. We looked great on paper: parents, a son, a daughter, a dog, and a chicken, renting a four-bedroom home in a nice part of town. But all was not well. My parent’s marriage was in name only. They had separated years earlier, getting back together solely to survive financially. My brother, combative and sometimes dangerous, overshadowed much of my childhood. 

Tired of being the golden child, I began rebelling shortly after we moved to Plano and I started high school. I started to worship at the church of heavy metal, dressed in black concert shirts and blue jeans, and delved into the world of cigarettes, alcohol, and weed. My parents took it as me disappointing the family. I came to realize years later I had entered self-protection mode by escaping into more adult endeavors in order to gain freedom from the chaos I could not avoid in my home life. 

In a period of just a few months during my junior year, several teenagers in this town of about 85,000 people committed suicide. This sad phenomenon became national news, and it naturally took its toll on many of us in my school. The administration ordered us not to discuss it at school and did not supply the sort of on-campus crisis counseling standard now for the latest school shootings. I felt like I lived in a town that ate its young.

Everything culminated in me walking into the vice principal’s office just a few days before finishing eleventh grade, announcing I was no longer in school, and dropping my textbooks on the secretary’s desk. What seemed like a wildly misguided choice to my friends – “Can’t you just hold on another week and then it’s summer?!” – was actually my attempt at salvation. I knew if I hung around that toxic hellhole of a school any longer, I stood a good chance of becoming one of the suicide statistics. 

I did not say goodbye to Dixie or Steve, from whom I had become estranged for reasons detailed in my previous essay. 

During my phone call with Steve, I went into full-blown confessional mode about what it took for me to make that life-altering choice. A choice, by the way, I have never regretted. I told him about my home life. My fears for myself. The impact of so many students taking their own lives. With great care in his voice, he replied, “Eve, I had no idea all of that was going on in your personal life. I’m so sorry I didn’t know.” 

The validation that provided me knocked me on my ass. I had no idea how much comfort I could take from his words, but I did because they came from someone who was there with me when that part of my life was roaring like wildfire. It felt like standing in the smoking area of our high school again at that tender age, black leather jackets on our backs, one kid telling another one that they cared about what happened to them.

Then, Steve blew my mind. “I guess the suicides didn’t affect me as hard as they did you because of what was going on in my house.” 

It was now my turn to hear a story I had never heard. One about the mistreatment he suffered in his house in a nice part of town. And everything began to fall into place. He and I had a connection we never knew about. One we would not discover until fate and the death of someone from those days we both loved reunited us 39 years later. 

Now I understood Steve’s need to become fiercely close to Dixie so quickly. This young man was building a safe “family” for himself, the same as I had done. We put on armor in any way we could in order to feel cherished, safe, and accepted. We both walked through fire and came out the other side wounded but resilient. 

The first part of my phone call with Steve covered Dixie’s cancer diagnosis, a brief but horrific time of being ill, and her passing. As he cried while retelling it, I shed many tears myself. Steve found himself cornered into becoming Dixie’s sole caretaker for the last few months of her life but took on the role the way a loving spouse so often does. I told him I understood in the way only other caretakers could truly get it, having been on that same hellacious ride with my mother, who had dementia for several years. Another bond I didn’t see coming. 

After that, we walked through the stories of our teenage years. Then, Steve changed conversational gears. “Let’s move into current times. What are you doing these days? What are you working towards now and what are your long-term dreams?” I was speechless for a few seconds. It was like a kind therapist giving you the floor to talk about your most intimate thoughts. 

And did I ever.

For the first time, I laid out the past several years of my life to someone without an ounce of feeling embarrassed or regretful. I told it exactly as it had happened, witchy warts and all. Taking care of my mother, helpless while I watched her slip away. The toll that took on my life because the sole responsibility rested on my shoulders. Giving up my home to move into hers, walking away from my career, and draining my savings account. I lost my social life and often questioned if I could keep going much longer living life on pause.

Steve listened quietly while I told him about putting my mother into a nursing home, her death, and the grief and numbness that I moved through like molasses for a long time. I told him about finally trying to go back to work, only to have the pandemic knock my ability to find a good job on its ass. I shamelessly and effortlessly weaved the tale of these past years and experienced empowerment I had not felt before. 

Steve validated every part of my story; something I desperately needed more than I realized. In a million years, I never thought that validation would come from a man who I last saw when he was a teenage boy and I was an unsure girl trying to keep her head above water. He told me how proud he was of me for what I endured and overcame. He expressed joy at the progress I’ve made with my writing, both professionally and personally, and said it sounded like I’d ended up in a pretty good place.

And, um, wow. I realized he was right. As we spoke, I definitely found myself in a good spot. I had to claw and cry and fight my way to it, but there I sat; in a house I love, with a once again blossoming career, and goals I’m excited about. 

In a real moment of kismet, it turned out Steve needed validation for his own reasons. He needed someone to whisper in his ear that it was perfectly fine to move on and find love again. He needed to hear my perspective as much as I needed his words. I know he’s moving on with someone special and I wish them well because they both deserve nothing less. 

Although Steve and I had moved away from each other long ago, the connection remains. Like running into a neighbor you lived next door to in another life and inviting them in for coffee.  

By the time we hung up, we had laughed, cried, shared secrets, and spent three hours talking our heads off. When I went to bed that night, I was breathless. I had changed during the course of that call. I saw the arc of my life in an entirely new light. I saw my current self in a judgment-free way; I had been set free. 

I took a risk, hoping for nothing more than the bare minimum of a half-decent return. And it brought back an old friend into my life in a full circle moment I never could have predicted. The phone call helped me put my life into clear focus and enjoy a much-needed sense of pride. It also helped me put Dixie to rest. I like to think she eavesdropped on the conversation and felt pleased by it. It also brought to mind a lyric from one of our favorite songs.

“Yesterday you were leaving
Leaving life and all your pain
Everything wants you back again
We’ll burn the sky
When it’s time for me to die”
Scorpions “Burn the Sky”