Capturing

The stories smolder
beneath my thoughts.
I search for my notes,
my misplaced
outlines and plans.
I want to write with
with cohesiveness and flow.

Like a river with the boat
carrying the readers
as though watching
the intricacies of shoreline,
both beauty and muddy,
trees and shadows
capturing smiles, tears,
and that sensation of
"I know what that's like.
I know, and I understand."

I want the reader
to absorb the book with their heart,
because it is my heart I have written,
my heart on the pages.
I want to give away my heart
with my words,
so you know me.


~~~~~~~~
Note: Digital art by Elizabeth Munroz

The Hardest Thing to Do

A first person account of Daniel Mercy:

I remember when my best friend, Johnny, came home from the hospital. We were both five. But he was half my size. He had been living with leukemia but then, he died. I remember that was when I first decided "when I grow up I'm going to be a doctor".

I soon forgot that dream and before you know it, all I wanted to do was ride my bike and be a racer. As I peddled like a speed demon delivering the newspaper throughout the neighborhood, I always avoided the house of Johnny's parents as much as possible. I got very good at throwing the paper from impossible distances, making sure his parents weren't in sight. If they were, I would go back later to deliver.

As I grew older Mom and Dad encouraged me to be an accountant. They pointed out my thriftiness with the income I made from my paper route as a way to point out that I was a "natural" for such a career. I would be secure with good money and I would always be well off, they said.

It was at that time I took up art and scribbled away on any piece of paper I could get my hands on drawing the microbes I saw in Biology class, drawing the map of the stars in astronomy class. It was then I decided I wanted to be an astronomer

But, the day came when at a neighborhood festival, I ran into Johnny's parents. They had gone on with their lives, and had other kids by this time. I met them one by one, right down to the youngest, the five year old they had named John.

That day is indelible in my mind, it was the day I got serious and began to study. I made up my mind, it would be medical school or nothing. It wasn't easy. I thought it was the hardest thing in the world I would ever do. But, it wasn't.

I thought the hardest thing I ever did was when my first patient died. I went home in a daze, I punched the wall in the garage before I went in the house and cried my eyes out in my wife's arms.

But, that truly was not the hardest thing I ever did. Not the hardest thing I will ever do.

The hardest thing I ever do, is every day... Sometimes it is when I have a new patient come in the door with worried parents.

And later on, after you have tried your best to save that little life, you would think the hardest thing is being honest and telling the kid its over. But they are so understanding and wise beyond their years. They already know. They are relieved. They want it to be over. They know it is time. They knew it before I did.

But that's not the hardest thing. The hardest thing is telling the parents there is nothing else that can be done. That it is all over. Time to go home and wait it out. Get hospice. And knowing the child wants to go, but the parents cling. That's the hardest thing.

>>>>>>>

Note: This was a fictional writing exercise in character development.

Creating a Character

Virginia sat in the car staring out over the cliff, seagulls dipping back and forth on the breeze. She took the rest of her sandwich, broke it into pieces, and began throwing them out the window one piece at a time.

Soon gulls squawked and dive bombed her car. Virginia quickly threw out the rest, and when the fighting started, she raised the window and numbly watched, not able to look away. Her intent to do a kindness, to feed some hungry birds had turned into a violent free-for-all as the bigger birds pecked at the smaller ones taking the food right out of their beaks.

Virginia was sorry she came out here. Sorry to see the gray waves sloppily sloshing the shore. It reminded her so much of herself, gray waves. Not even waves, just gray. Grey like the dreams that didn't make sense. Virginia didn't just feel gray, she was the essence of gray, like the heavy fog beginning to creep toward the cliff. She felt like she could dissipate and seep right into it, like dust swept into air. Except she didn't have the energy to move. Just sit and stare and be nowhere.

Virginia knew she was depressed. She had been here many times before. Despondency her old friend/old foe never went too far away, always lurking in the background of her life somewhere. "That's the way it is when you've got brain chemicals out of whack." she said to the last departing seagull.

The oddest things triggered her mood swings. It wasn't anything that Paul said. He could say the same exact thing ten days ago and it wouldn't pierce her heart, draining all the blood of her self-esteem away. No. It wasn't what Paul said. It was the brain chemicals.