When my husband and I went to our girl’s back to school night a couple of weeks ago, one of the things her kindergarten teacher asked us to do was to write a letter that he could keep in a file, to read to her in the event that there’s a major emergency and we can’t get to the school to pick her up right away. Apparently teachers ask this of all the parents, in all the schools down here in LA. It’s not a bad idea.
If you live around these parts, you know that it’s not if an earthquake hits, it’s when. I do try to be prepared. We have a stash of canned food in the garage (although I admit, it’s mostly chili and peaches) as well as some water (though not enough) and a first aid kit. But, as it turns out, when your kid starts school, you also have to prepare for what an earthquake will mean to them.
So I sat down to write this letter and the gravity of the whole thing hit me. The truth is, if there’s an earthquake that’s bad enough that I can’t get to my girl’s school, odds are, people have died and (here’s where my writer’s brain gets carried away) there’s really no reason one of those people couldn’t be me.
What’s more, as writer, I feel a certain obligation to write a really good letter. I mean, what if I do die, and this is the last thing she will ever hear from me? She will later remember me as a writer and, as she rereads that letter, thinking of her loving mother, a little part of her will be judging. Is that paranoid? I have this image in my head of her weeping at her profound loss, and then being momentarily distracted by my misuse of a comma. Needless to say, I felt pressure to perform.
I decided to write the letter with the assumption that I would not be dead.
I told her how I knew she was probably scared, and that I probably was too, but not to worry, I was desperately trying to get to her and hug her again, and everything will be okay – even if it doesn’t seem that way right now.
When I read it to Daniel (focus group of one) he pointed out that if she’s not already scared after the earthquake hits, that letter will make sure she is solidly freaked.
So I rewrote it.
Did I mention the teacher had given us a deadline of the end of the week? I’ve written for national publications with more lenient timelines. I wondered if the other parents were having as much trouble. I wanted to see what they wrote.
The whole thing reminded me a quote from Thomas Mann (he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1929): “A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.”
I did finally finish the letter. It is now tucked away in a file somewhere at my girl’s school, and if The Big One should hit, her teacher will read it to her, and she will hopefully be reassured and comforted. I hope, at the very least, she is impressed by my careful use of grammar.
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