Don't Blink

Several years ago, while my husband was at work, his boss called me. It was five in the morning and when the ringing phone woke me up, I knew it wasn't a good thing. Nobody ever calls with good news at five in the morning.

Thankfully, everything was okay, and I can't say I really remember what he said to me that morning. What I do vividly remember is how slow he talked. How every word seemed to drag into eternity. How badly I wanted to reach through the phone and grip his neck and shake him until he told me whether or not he was about to rip my world apart. I hate that excruciating moment between when you know something is wrong but not what...

It happened again on Sunday. This time my mom was on the other end of the line and it was early afternoon rather than early morning, but I could hear the panic in her voice. And a thousand horrible thoughts and images flashed through my mind before she spoke.

Uncle Roger died this morning. It took me several moments to process her words...to even know who she was talking about. Uncle Roger?

And then the floodgates opened and the memories came. The Uncle Roger of my childhood summers. The one we drove to visit in Wisconsin. The one who helped my brother and I catch fireflies and taught me how to play badminton. The one who teased me relentlessly (but in that twinkle-in-the-eye-I-love-you way).

He is scattered across my journal entries of the summer when I first read the Diary of Anne Frank and decided to keep a diary of my own. His voice echoes across the videos I took from the camcorder glued to my right hand during the summer I wanted to be a filmmaker. He is there during the summer of my first crush and during the summer of my first heartbreak.

Somewhere around my fifteenth summer, the memories fade. While my world was growing and expanding, a tragedy shrunk his. And our worlds never touched again.

I always thought I'd still see him sometime. He lived 362 miles from me. That's 6 hours. I could conceivably drive to his house and back twice in one day. And he was still young...still healthy...

Life is short. We all know that. But sometimes in the craziness of our everyday lives we forget. Writers especially. We can so easily get lost in the worlds and places that we create inside our heads. Our imaginations are rich and our stories consume us, and that's all great. I wouldn't trade that for anything.

But sometimes we need to take a break and step away from our character's lives and exist in the life going on around us.

Before it's too late. Before the phone rings.