Thursday 9 October 2008

The Seven Ages of Gordie - # 3



My Age:

What Happened:














How I Coped:

7

Writing. Fame. Death.

I loved books. Then somebody told me I could write. And suddenly, I discovered myself. I wrote stories,I wrote poems, and within a year, I was a published author, with my picture in the paper.

That same year, people around me started dying. A boy in my class, who got cancer. And my Uncle Ken, who just expired one day, and I don't remember being told why.

I think the first funeral I went to would have been Robert's. The little boy coffin, and then a while later, a different church and an adult coffin.

Uncle Ken was a painter, and my Auntie said he'd gone to paint houses in Heaven. I hope he did a good job. I hope they paid him properly.

I'm still not sure how I dealt with all of that. I'd found something that made me powerful, and something that no power could overcome. I think I began to split in two, inside. I began to think about what was and wasn't acceptable about me, and who I could safely share it with. Yes, dear reader, I became an editor.



1 comment:

Romeo Morningwood said...

Very touching. Those little coffins are horrific.

My little brother died when I was 5 and the foggy recollections I have, are of a house full of whispering, ashen, relatives with forced smiles.