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Random conscious emotions and memories of my grandma and all she meant/means to me.

January 20, 2008

Dear Grandma Rena,

I almost don’t know how to begin – I am feeling so much for you and not a day goes by that I don’t think of you at least once. I have always loved you so much and will continue until the day I leave this earth. I miss you in ways I never thought I would, and yet I am thankful that you have not been here these last three years to see what has happened to me.

I remembered your birthday, November 8th; had you lived to this day, you would have been 99 years old. I also remembered the day you left this earthly world for a better place – December 22nd; we buried you on Christmas Eve 1997. I spoke at your funeral and had peace that you had finally gone to be with our Heavenly Father. I knew that you no longer suffered from the pains and sickness of age or the devastating Alzheimer’s disease that left you unable to speak or remember your loving family. I am thankful that you passed in your sleep and didn’t suffer – you died with dignity, just as you lived your life.

Though you are gone from this world, I remember you vividly. You are in my day thoughts and my dreams at night sometimes. I can still see your loving and sparkling blueberry eyes, the softness and warmth of your cheek against mine, your soft scents of Dove soap and Jergens lotion, and the way you would warm my hands when I came in from the cold. Your embrace was always warm, loving, and made me feel that I was in a place that I belonged.

I remember reading all of the Nancy Drew books in the bookcase and then you would show the Grit newspaper to quench my thirst for knowledge. You valued education and knowledge and encouraged the same love in me. I still yearn to learn and grow – I owe that in part to you.

I remember the smells of your kitchen – breakfast in the morning – coffee, cocoa, eggs, homemade biscuits and jelly, and some type of meat. Lunch and dinner were just as inviting and delicious. There were always homemade desserts that no one can duplicate. Or in the summer, you always kept ice cream and would ask me, “Do you want a little bit of cream?” for a snack.

There are so many memories and emotions that you have blessed me with that I cannot encompass in one letter, so I will close for now. I guess the main point I wanted to make today, is that I’ve never felt the same with anyone else, as I did in your embrace and in your house – I felt loved, I belonged, and I knew that you meant everything you did or say to me with genuine love. I miss you so much …

All of my Love,
Rebekah

Kyle jumped into the picture as I was snapping it with my cell phone. We were both in our Yellows and hardhats, the US Forest Service logo on our sleeves. And there I was trying to get a picture of me with the Zaca Fire in the background, when now I’d have a picture of me and Kyle with his tongue sticking out.

They called us firefighters. Me and Kyle and everyone else on Engine Crew 31. We were the bozo’s from a town called Pozo, population: 35. Shaffrar was a 20-something farm kid who chewed Copenhagen like a grown man. Lightning was from South Georgia and talked really slow and was really long winded, hence the irony of his nickname. Embrie was our Captain, and she could carry a chainsaw like the Gears of War video game. But Kyle, Kyle just wrote “poop” on fiber tape and stuck it to the back of my helmet.

The Zaca Fire was my first fire. The second largest wildfire in the history of California. And I didn’t know what to expect as we rolled up in our Type 3 Wildland Fire Engine to watch the burn show, but Kyle leaning over and whispering “scary, ooooh scary” sure wasn’t helping.

Our striketeam, made up of 4 other fire engines and us, staged in a line along the safety zone and readied our hoses in case the firing operation when array. Hotshot crews were stationed at the top of three hills, preparing to set off a back fire and kill the beast. I looked up over the ridge and took off my sunglasses in awe.

There it was, the Devil himself, the main fire came ripping over the ridge like a tidal wave made of flames. The smoldering ash was shot high into the air, making the evening sky a choking grey. Kyle and I stood at the edge of the safety zone taking weather. Wind conditions were right, everything checked out, crews loaded their drip torches and prepared to start some fire.

The flares were fired high, exploding like bottle rockets on the dry brush. Small shrubs caught flame and torched like roman candles, and soon a wave of red and orange was snaking its way toward the main fire.

It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. I’d been picked up off the street lifeguarding at a pool for this job, and never in my life did I think that I would ever be fighting a wildfire in some godforsaken forest in the mountains of California. I stood there breathless as I watched the show, and thought about all my friends back home who hadn’t been there for me when I needed them, or my family who had told me not to come here, and wondered how many people in the world would ever see the things I was seeing now.

Kyle looked over at me and smiled.

“You know, fire’s not as scary as most people think it is.”

“I’m not scared,” I said trying to sound tough, “it’s exciting.”

He just smiled and continued watching the fire. We were standing really close to each other, two silhouettes against a raging flame front.

“It’s beautiful,” I gasped. He touched my head with his two fingers then.

“Keep it up here,” he said.

I shot a quick glance at him. His blue eyes and square jaw on his broad neck and shoulders made him perfect for hugging, perfect for teasing, there were plenty of things about him to make fun of. He was so beautiful too.

I thought about going for it, how the one thing that would make this moment perfect would be his hand in mine. Standing there watching the Zaca Fire, holding Kyle’s hand with my line gear on in the middle of nowhere would have been the best moment of my life.

We stood there in silence for a while, the fire danced a mile away, unable to harm us and yet threatening our lives. Then Kyle turned and walked back to the engine. It wasn’t what I was there for, I was there to fight fires and work hard. But even with my Pulaski axe proudly in my hands, I still wish I could have just bucked-up and held Kyle’s hand.

1. Abandon Hope, Ye Who Enter Here. It’s a dangerous and heartless world for those who put their fears and hearts out into the world for review.

2. Respect the stupid man. Though they be ignorant and nuisance, they also be your audience, many stupid people in the world. Write for the audience because no one cares about you.

3. Destroy yourself and your craft. There is no craft in writing, not anymore, never again. The New York Times Best Selling authors say that they have an office in their homes where they work 8 hour days with a lunch break in between, and in that time they force themselves to write. Whatever comes out is forced. No art. Sell.

4. Be irrational. The tallest of the tall tales makes for good sci fi. If you wanted to write a coherent story, you should have been a screenwriter.

5. Become a Creative Genius. Go sit by yourself in the aisles of Barnes and Noble and just read. Many people’s intelligence can’t support their imagination, so become intelligent. Creative Genius’ are people who are amazing at being completely wrong, but do it so that it sounds like it could be right.

6. Stay in school. Let them purge your gift from your system and give you their way of doing it. If you follow the program, you’ll transfer to USC where you’ll get a Master’s in Creative Writing and become rich and famous like Stephen Spielberg. The worse that will happen is that you will end up being a legal secretary and they make good money. All your lousy natural talent will get you is some luck.

7. Don’t hang out on writer’s websites. They’re full of people who believe in themselves. People who believe in themselves put everything of themselves into their writing, so when you critique their writing, you are critiquing them. If someone called you fat, you’d punch them too even if you were fat. Never say anything but nice things about someone’s writing, flattery may get you a job and at worse may get you laid.

8. Don’t listen to what “those who’ve been published ” have to say, go straight to a publisher and ask them if your stuff is crap or not because in the end, all every writer is doing is guessing at what may or may not get published. You’re wasting your time and emotions listening to writing guru’s.

9. Never fall with a friend. Though you be an angel, fallen angels always end up in Hell.

And last but not least…

10. If at first you don’t succeed…quit.

Last edited by Nicole_Hellene on November 25, 2007, 11:25 am