MOTHER COURAGE

Hooray! I conducted another inteview for Late Bloomers. 

The interview was with a girl I’ve known since elementary school named Stephanie. 

I remember Stephanie, and always have despite us not being close, because her mother died when we were ten. I could not believe it when the teacher, after reading us another chapter of James and the Giant Peach, told us that Stephanie and her brother would not be at school for the week because their mom had suffered a heart attack. 

I was very close with my mother as a young girl. Although our relationship has often been shaky, she means a lot to me and I remember thinking that death was impossible. It just was not possible for a ten year old girls mom to die. 

So I met with Stephanie at Baked Expectations to talk about it, since one of the themes that will govern a story, I’ve decided, is death. This was not only an opportunity to gain insight into the mind of what will become a protagonist in a story I am writing, but one to ask questions I have contemplated literally for most of my life. This event affected me even though I was not involved.

Needless to say we were both sobbing by the end of the interview. 

“Unicorns were always special to my mom and I,” she said, wiping her eyes. “I walked into a store, not far from here last summer, and saw a little, white unicorn figurine. I knew I had to get it, and the man at the till told me that someone was watching over me. I don’t cry about it that much anymore, but then I did.”

She also told me her mother wrote her a note when she was a little girl, and she reads it on her birthday every year. When the family moved houses, however, Steph though she lost it.

“I have literally never been afraid of anything more in my life,” she said, before telling me she later found it. 

I was so thankful for Stephanie opening up to me. I feel as though young women who have mothers and who don’t will be able to appreciate her story and I can’t wait to listen to the interview again (I tape recorded it) and start creating my character.