ever since i was young i looked at things and i saw shapes and faces and in my head stories would spin. in grade one we had this game where the teacher would show a photograph from a magazine and she would ask us what we thought was happening. i always gave the longest answer with lots of possibilities. in the beginning the teacher would tell me to keep it brief or to give just one answer. later on, i think she just wanted to hear what stories were whirling in my head and straight out of my mouth. of course, it helped that i could read for as long as i can remember plus i observed people, their actions, their clothes, their words.
in high school, we had a subject called 'english composition' where we wrote essays and book reports. one day we had to write an essay about what we would like to be ten years after high school. i wrote that i see myself writing a book, a novel perhaps. my teacher, however, when she returned our graded essays, wrote that i would never be a writer because my essays were flat and that my book reports were uninteresting. it was of course contrary to what my other teachers have told me but that had always stayed in my mind.
maybe over the years i improved quite a bit as i always had raving comments from my professors on my reports and essays. when one of my professors asked me to write an article for the school newspaper i told him about my composition teacher's comment but he said i should listen to myself for the truth and not to the subjective opinions of others.
in my first job at the government office, an older lady was transferred to our department to assist the department with our reports. Antonia was a large woman, by large i mean tall, not skinny tall but beefy tall. we used to see her around the office and i would avoid walking in her path because she had such a stern face and she never smiled. her transfer to our department made me quite nervous. but looks are always deceiving. she was the most soft-hearted person and one of the loveliest persons i had ever known in my young life. she saw right away that i would make her job easier when i gave her a summary of what she would need to report on and one day, reading the rough draft i handed her, she said, "wow! i don't need to write a report, this summary is just as good" and she went on to show our boss. the boss told her in a joking manner, "so what do we need you for if she can do the report?" since then, to my delight, i was the go-to person in writing memos and letters for the department.
Antonia liked to snack. one day i was away from my desk when she had one of her cravings. she knew i always kept a snack in drawer so she opened it. unfortunately for her, i had not replenished my 'inventory' that day. she had found my notebook (the paper notebook, you know, with spiral on the one side) and read a poem i had just written the previous night. when i came back to my desk, curiosity had been eating at her and she asked me "who is benjamin?" i surmised that she had been poking at my drawer because i've never told anyone in that office about benjamin. because i knew she had experience in writing, i asked what she thought of my poem. she asked to read it so i handed her my notebook. i watched her face's reactions as she read the poem again - eyebrows raised, lips pursed, head nodded, a side glance. "you're good! where did you learn how to write poems?" i told her i didn't have an y training in writing anything. when i told her i was studying accounting management, she said that maybe i should shift to arts and letters because my future would be in writing. when i mentioned to her about my composition teacher in high school, she told me, "let's go see her and i will tear her bones apart!" then we both laughed. It was Antonia who told me that my life belonged to writing and she was one of the few people who believed that i can do whatever i wanted to do. i found in her the mother figure that i had been missing and she nurtured my academic pursuits and edited my stories.
when my stories were published in an anthology in 1999, i sent her a copy of the book. a letter from her daughter, however, came telling me that Antonia died in 1991. she was still a young girl when i last saw her but she remembered me, as her mother always talked about me and had always wondered what had happened to me. i felt sad and regretted that i was awful at keeping in touch with those few friends that i loved and respect.
what a beautiful story and special person - it is sad that in life we often lose touch with those that made the biggest difference - I would love to read your anthology of stories :)
A very touching narrative. All to often we leave something for another day and that day never comes! I recently told my mother not keep something for 'a special occasion' because everyday is a special occasion!
Once again you had me in your office when you came back to your desk. Great light on the two leaves. i see a figure, sort of a head, an upper torso, and a skirt in the left half. What's with the "I see dead people" tag?
I think there is always one or two people in life that we wish we'd kept in touch with. But sometimes you can't go back and "fix it" as in this case where your special person passed on without you knowing it. But you can still honor her belief and faith in you. My advisor in college once said to me, "You are a very determined young lady Miss Hamilton" and now every time I feel like giving up, I think of Mr. Taylor's assessment and push forward. Even though he is no longer with us, I still want to fulfill his words! You are doing the same every time you write- both here and elsewhere. I think she would be very pleased.
