A Reason to Keep Going

The Missing Chapter

March 27, 2022: 6:55AM, Pacific Time

On the plane ride home from California, I started writing the “missing chapter”. At first, the story read as a robotic play-by-play: this happened, and then this, and then that.

“In December 2000, I was sitting on the couch, laughing over the words of my silly Christmas play, when…”

Ruth had said to include all the details, so I started listing them. Blah, blah, blah. A cluster of cliches, as Ruth liked to call them, unoriginal and flat.

“I hope this isn’t a waste of time,” I muttered under my breath. My neighbor on the plane shifted in her seat, still asleep. I turned my screen, so she wouldn’t be assaulted by my dreadful first draft.

What happened that day really wasn’t so bad, Mary. Lots of other people have it worse. Just get over it already…

But this was the way to get over it. Through years of experience, I knew that only the labor of writing could give me the clarity and insight I craved. Writing was how I made sense of my interior and exterior worlds. When I first started at the age of 7, I wrote imaginary stories—fantasy and science fiction. Later, poems and diaries and essays for school. A fantasy novel at age 15, and now, at age 35, a memoir. As a child, I wrote for the joy of creating something new; now I was writing to discover the truth.

Ruth had told me to keep going, so I wrote and wrote and wrote. All the way across the country, from San Francisco to Detroit. And when I got back to Michigan, and the kids were settled down, and James and I were caught up, I found more opportunities to write, and rewrite, and edit again.

The Missing Chapter grew stronger. The insights shone brighter. The cliches disappeared.

Something was still missing.

I let the chapter rest in my head for weeks. I carried it with me on my stroller walks with Elizabeth, while washing dishes, and during my morning meditations.

Gradually, a new idea formed in my mind.

Take this chapter, and combine it with the scene where I first tried writing about the incident. Write a story within a story.

I tried it that afternoon. Elizabeth was napping, and my son was in the next room.

It worked right away. New insights came – most importantly, the reason that day was so life-changing for me. I had never discovered it before, because it wasn’t something I had thought about, or that I’d consciously considered. Instead, it was an act of survival.

This is the key, I thought, my heart pounding as if I’d found a priceless pearl. The answer to everything.

I closed my laptop and left my room to wake my daughter from her nap.

Externally, nothing had changed. No one had even read “The Missing Chapter” yet.

But inside, my spirit was lifting its wings and preparing for flight. For the first time in a very long time, I felt free.