The Girl Who Didn't Cry B

The B in the title denotes a BOOK entry. See below blog.

I am feeling much better and actually got my house clean today. I can't function when it's dirty or cluttered. My brain just does not operate well in a messy environment. So, I got the floors all done and the laundry finished and the porches clean. There wasn't much clutter because I pretty much keep that to a minimum all the time.

I still need to empty and thoroughly clean my frig, but that will have to wait a few days. I have work to do on MT's web site that is way overdue. I could have stayed home this afternoon and made some progress on it but I am better at knowing when to quit, and it was time to quit by four, so off I went to Tampa with Richard.

We were there until nine and about halfway through the evening, we ate big cheeseburger combos with a load of excellent fries, which I enjoyed very much... even though it was breaking my diet. Can't do that very often but it's nice now and then.

I found some old writings as I mentioned in an earlier post. Among them is a start on my life story I had made some time ago. For some reason, I had written it in the third person. I am posting part of that here and will add the rest to a later post:
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The Girl Who Didn't Cry

Iona sat in the gray tweed recliner, her feet tucked up under her. The recliner was not comfortable. Its seat was lumpy, and the foam padding over the springs was all but gone. Shifting her weight carefully to avoid scraping her foot across the thinly covered wood framing of the chair, she pulled her blue robe more snugly around her and smiled to herself.

Richard called her a fuzzy blue bear when she wore the robe. She liked that. He wasn’t a romantic man, but Iona knew there was no love as lasting as the one they shared. “Thank you, Lord, for making us one,” she whispered, “and please help me plan my day now.” She continued to pray as she made notations of the day’s duties and plans in her Pocket Day Timer, a small black book she carried everywhere. As usual, there was more listed than she would ever accomplish in one day.

I should be making Christmas plans, she thought, and immediately felt defeated. There wasn’t going to be any money for Christmas this year. She had plenty of yarn in almost every color, but she knew herself too well to even think of trying to knit or crochet something for everyone on her list. She had tried that before. The house was already full of her half-finished projects.

Still praying, she allowed God to lead her thoughts. “Try something you’re better at,” she told herself aloud. She had often thought of writing her life story for her children and for Richard and had even started once. But where to begin? How much to tell? The whole truth? How bare should she lay herself? Wouldn’t she end up dramatizing as she tried to bring the story to life? Probably, and she didn’t want that. It had to be real and true to be any good, and Iona was afraid she just couldn’t do that.

But the idea continued to nag at her as she refilled her coffee cup. Slowly, her courage grew and the idea seemed more plausible. “You’ll never get it done in time,” a persistent inner voice told her.”

Setting her jaw in defiance and determination, she snatched up her Day Timer and wrote Novel—10 pages under her reminder to attend Parent-Teacher conferences.

Now to the planning and outlining of her story. No. It should just flow, letting God and the work itself lead from one subject to the next. It must not be one of those boring life histories with nothing but dates, places and sketchy events. I must be real and alive and vibrant—like a novel. She had used the word without thinking, but knew now that it must be that. A novel, not based on her life story, but the reality of her life. How many times had people told her she should write her life’s story? Plenty. She knew her life had been exciting and interesting to her, but…

No! She would not, could not allow herself to exaggerate, add frills from her vivid imagination as she had done all her life. One friend with a similar tendency had said “It’s the storyteller in us. We’re writers and we can’t help it.” Was that true, or were they both just plain liars?

What if her story were to hurt someone? It was one thing to reveal her own inner self, her own life and deeds and thoughts, but quite another to tell all about someone else. Others in her life might not want parts of their life in print, even in a limited edition such as this.

Sitting at her computer, still clad in the big blue robe, she continued to ponder this problem as she set up pages and made ready to begin. The cursor blinked on the screen awaiting her first keystroke, but Iona was at a standstill. What about other people’s right to privacy? She didn’t want this to be an expose´. No one should be hurt in any way by this work.

Suddenly, almost surprising herself, she began to type. Let God have it. He would guide her as she went along. Sometimes the truth hurts, she thought, and all of us know deep down that what we do—good or bad—will one day be exposed. There will be a judgement day, a time of reckoning. It’s easy not to think about, since we think of it in the far off eternities. It’s a hard subject, she thought, too deep for this work, but here is my exposure.

Iona glanced at the clock on her desk. An hour had passed and she had only one page finished. This was ridiculous. At this rate, it would take ten hours a day to complete her writing schedule. She would have to quit philosophizing and just let the words and story flow. She wasn’t a fast typist anyway, nor an accurate one, so even if she never stopped to think of better wording, even if she did no editing or rewriting at all, the book would consume vast amounts of time—and time was short. "So what’s new?" she said, laughing out loud.

She was on a killer schedule, trying to be a full-time hog farmer, manage her truck, care for her home and family, wind up operations on her failed corporation, take a full load of AG classes at the college—as always the list was endless.

Then all that was forgotten and Iona was transported by the work itself, the joy of writing, the anticipation of Christmas morning… Dirty dishes and laundry forgotten, the woman at the computer let her mind drift backwards in time to her earliest remembrances. There was no continuity there, just flashes in time, snapshots of early childhood. She had no way to tell how chronological they were, but no matter.

Iona could see her Uncle Chris at the wheel of his new coupe. She was a spindly three-year-old standing in the front seat as he maneuvered through San Francisco's heavy traffic. She was proud he had taken her with him, leaving Mama and baby brother home alone.

Her joy was abruptly shattered in a flash of noise and pain and the hot, sticky feel of her own blood dripping through her tiny fingers as her hands, without direction, groped to comfort and protect her forehead and nose.

Bigger hands, hairy ones, groped and grabbed at her, pulling her from the car. Angry sounding voices yelled and a child screamed. Soon she began to recognize the screaming child as herself and the yelling voice as that of Uncle Chris. Thinking he was scolding her, she stopped wailing and opened her eyes.

She way laying on the pavement beside the dark green coupe. People were looking down at her, and Uncle Chris was cursing at them as he wiped her face with a dirty handkerchief.

A pretty lady brought a wet bar towel and gently blotted away the blood. Uncle Chris stopped yelling and cursing. His voice became smooth and he crooned in appreciation. Some time later, she was standing in the coupe’s front seat again, and they were pulling into a big parking lot.

“You are sure a brave girl,” said Uncle Chris beaming down at her as they walked hand-in-hand toward the grocery store. “I hate squalling kids, as your mother knows, but I do love good boys and girls.” Iona would remember never to cry around Uncle Chris, never, ever again—no matter what. In fact, she decided she would try to never cry around anyone, not even Mama. Well, maybe Mama sometimes, if things were really, really bad.

Feeling quite important, she followed Uncle Chis around the big grocery store. He soon let go of her hand and was engrossed in potatoes and onions.

Iona absently ran her fingers around the cuts on her head and nose. She could feel that her swollen nose was different than her real nose and felt she, too, might be a different person. A person no one knew.

Looking around, she was frightened to see that Uncle Chris had left the produce area. There was only a very fat lady squatting to knock inquiringly on a watermelon. Where was Uncle Chris? Why had he gone off and left her alone in this big place where she might get lost? Mama always held her hand when they went anywhere and never left her alone and afraid in a big scary place like this.

Suddenly her head and nose hurt terribly and her stomach began to shake. Acid tears burned the rims of her eyes and she opened her mouth, sucking in a deep breath, preparing to scream louder than she ever had. But then she remembered.

No! I won’t cry. I won’t!

Fear turning to sudden rage, she turned and ran to the squatting fat woman, yelled at her as loud as she could and ran wildly down the aisle. 

“I have never in my life been so mortified!” Uncle Chris later howled at Mama. But Mama was more concerned about the cuts.

Iona was proud and happy. She had yelled but not cried. Uncle Chris and Mama argued about who knows what, but it didn’t matter to her; she was a big, good girl now. She didn’t cry.

And she didn’t cry a year later, when Uncle Chris visited them again. He had brought a large box of not-quite-ripe tomatoes on that visit. The tomatoes were kept in the bedroom shared by Iona and Donnie so they would ripen slowly.

The children soon discovered they made excellent balls. The green ones were hard and strong-skinned, but the red ones would explode when they hit the wall. When Uncle Chris discovered their game, he spanked them both hard. Donnie wailed and sobbed for mercy, but Iona bit her lip in determination. A few tears squeezed from her clenched eyelids, but she did not cry out loud. Not one whimper.