Middle school knights and ladies pin
Beatles eight track tape
Brown teddy bear without an arm
Dirty little socks missing its pair
Clearning the garage without you
Fixing the last tilted shelf we built
You and I built it for Mom
My life was your gift when I was young
Love never meant to hurt
Broken boundaries were tough
Hope was supposed to stay
The touch shouldn't harm
Joy was to have within
Living should never have trauma
Faith was to restore my life
Days were unexpectedly tearful
Time was my only friend
My life one step at a time
Thank you for the miracle.
Thank you for taking me to the orphanage when I was five. I met the most important people in the world, the orphans, the poor, the indigent, the destitute, and the helpers.
Thank you for teaching. You taught your students and you shepherd them into builders, winners, success stories, and legends. And, I am one of them.
Thank you for teaching me how to sing. I worship acapella anywhere I want and anytime I desire, and I know Jesus is listening.
Thank you for working, and never drinking alcohol. I grew up in a home that was alcohol-free and substance free. We were all spared the addictions.
Thank you for taking me to church, no matter how much other people ridiculed us because we were poor in the United States.
Thank you for telling me I was smart and intelligence was worth more than beauty.
Thank you for helping me build a car alarm for physics. I got an A for the project.
Thank you for teaching Math and Calculus at a juvenile hall in Mulholland. You were the best import for America.
Thank you for telling me that it wasn't the university that makes a success, it was the choices we make.
Thank you for being angry when I made the wrong choice or I wasn't responsible. I needed the talk.
Thank you for telling me I was too kind to be competitive, because I cared more about helping and building up than winning and losing.
Thank you for singing at church and making Sundays a great day for a family meal, even if it was just you, Mami and me.
Thank you for drinking decaf coffee with me in the mornings and letting me hug you around your big tummy. I cherish those hugs.
Thank you for loving me through action, because you taught me that that's what love should be, a choice, an action, and a strong decision.
Thank you for showing me and teaching me to not aim for perfection, but aim for meaningful.
Thank you for backing me up and telling me and doing so, after assaults, after doubts, after suicide attempts.
Thank you for knowing that hope was what you saw inside me, when I felt that I didn't have hope at all.
Thank you for staying with me when no one came to my party.
Thank you for caring when no one else did.
Thank you for telling me I was worth waiting for, when no one was waiting on me, and no one was there to begin with.
Thank you for staying with me, walking with me and not being afraid of being seen with me, when all around me, people ridiculed and laughed.
Thank you for teaching me to not be a jealous person, because jealous people will never be happy.
Thank you for helping me, and thank you for building furniture and shelves with me, it was our last project together. I cherish those moments of home building.
Thank you for eating the ice cream I brought for you. You smiled at me and told me I made you happy while you were sick, and that made me happy.
Thank you for taking turns with me mowing the lawn, even when it was sprinkling, raining, or under the hot scorching sun.
I may not have you anymore because you're in Heaven now, but I had 45 years of unconditional love from you. It was so much more than I expected, especially during our roughest and toughest times. You believed in me, and you cautioned me, and you helped me and spoke with me and took your time with me. No one else worked as hard as you did in blessing me. I am forever in gratitude and I am forever your daughter, and I am happy I was there until your last breaths. Thank you, Dear Papi.
Just write.
There were some payoff to the writing, but no consolation for the worries. Submittable offered no pep talks, no receipt with an uplifting email or letter. I kept going as if nothing happened and told no one because it was so shameful to have been rejected multiple times for reasons I didn't know. I wish I had the money for expedited responses, and constructive feedback on each short story, but there was no money and I was not about to go on more debt. I relented, surrendered and hoped for the best. I cried afterwards, knowing there was a 50% chance of acceptance, but upon writing my story, it felt a hundred. I was hopeful, at least for a short time.
I didn't compare myself, because it was tasteless to my conscience. It would hurt me for the most part and I didn't want to criticize other writers when I was not born a Stephen King, or an Amy Tan, or a J.K. Rowling. I was just one writer, trying with all I got and praying upon each entry for a place for publication, to be given the acceptance to be a part of their world, and to be a contributor, not a desperado.
Maybe, I am over thinking it, but when I submit, it just felt fearful and I couldn't help but worry. The PTSD spiraled sometimes and I close my eyes and raise my arms to God, Love me, bless me, make me a greatest work of art.
Keep writing. Just write.
Professing doubt was not the problem, it was the moving through that took me more than I was ready to digest. I sinned the greatest of all writer's sins, the doubting of the craft and the fears of skills unpracticed. I stopped writing for a week.
Every day should at least possess inside itself (at least) 500 words of prose that spun unnoticed in my own mind. Without trying, it should be there, whether I liked it or not. I was the sinner for enjoying the separation of my ode to God to write, and took a break from using my craft and talents for worship. Writing was life, and I had to get on with it to keep breathing.
What was conceived inside me was supposed to be greater, but yesterday and for a week, it was dark sin that rotted into death. The consummation of evil need not be great, it could be a simple laziness, or just a smidge of pride. It then turned greater as it spun its web into the crevices of our being, as it ate my esteem, and became a wounded and spiraled ebb of death becoming. It took a week and it almost cost me the tenderness of my creative heart.
It started to harden with crystalized protein of dark materials that was caustic, because as the days went on, I became separated from my craft, the talent gifted in me by my maker in Heaven. I took myself to meditation, and had to chisel off the crystalized materials that was attacking my heart with verses mantra, as the veins of my blood vessels were clotted and blocked, ready to heart attack itself, to cause me to stop beating, stop writing, and I would die...instantly.
Not so fast, came these words of Neil Gaiman, "finish thy failures, and it is a greater learning experience, greater than a finished masterpiece," as he said reworded, while I listened and he changed the word, 'failures' into "practice with fear and trembling" towards the finish line. I took myself to this blog, as I was compelled to write my fears and doubts because I didn't know why I felt it. It was there and I trembled, shivered, worried, cried, pained and struggled to get the words out. It crept into me and often I wouldn't understand why. I was so afraid of failure that I ceased to practice because of the never could happen, never would be possible, the odds of against me became the devil inside my gut and that was conceived into death. My head was down and I was defeated.....but not yet, O satan!
Get thee behind me, Lucifer, you were never worthy of my life. Never did God say I failed, he told me to get on, move on, move through, cycle through, keep it on! I won't listen to the laziness and the thoughts of how I was not good enough according to the world's standard. Who made it? I was good to write, and I kept on, and won't stop.
Just write.