(Note: The book pictured above is awesome and I plan on owning it one day. I discovered it while working at Barnes&Noble and used to read chunks of it every single day I worked.)
Today in the middle of teaching a Relief Society lesson, I made a startling discovery. I had brought my copy of a book called "Ishmael," which I had picked up miraculously from a thrift store years earlier, but which I'd never actually opened. I read the book in high school, and just hadn't read the particular copy that I owned. I was using it to read a quote from, and during a portion of my lesson, I had the girls take a few minutes to quietly write something down. I did a little rearranging of everything on the table in front of me, and as I did, I noticed a folded piece of notebook paper in the back of the book. I took it out and only had time to read one or two shocking lines of it before needing to re-focus on Joseph Smith and the restoration of all things. But I read it afterwards and was astounded.
It sounds almost too classic to be real...so many things are clearly established that it sounds contrived. Even if it's fake, it's brilliant. But I'm going to enjoy believing that it's real. This is what it said:
May 1997
Dearest Adam,
If you are reading this, well you don't know about the baby. It's yours. She's yours, well mine too. She's beautiful and charming. I never thought I would have so much joy in my entire life. Except with you.
Addy, please come back. I can't do this without you. And Emily needs a father. Even if the lady you ran off with comes, too. It's important.
Addy, remember the dancing? How you'd come in the darkest hours and we'd stop in the fields and dance in the car lights? Underneath all those beautiful stars? I won't ever forget those nights.
Those nights where you held me and I was safe. Those nights when our families disowning us didn't matter. Addy, please come back.
I love you still, always. However, if your lady friend comes with you, I will resist the urge to hold you in my arms and listen to my favorite song, your heartbeat.
I never thought that I would ever cry so much in my entire life, and then when the tears are no more I just lay holding Emily, wishing you could see her bright eyes, your eyes.
I love you Addy, and I forgive you.
With final love and pleading,
Charlene
This is pure art. Pure love, pure selflessness, pure literature. May I steal it? I mean obviously referencing the find, but I just want to refer to it often throughout the rest of my life :)
ReplyDeleteAlso the verification word if flumbap. BUM FLAP!
Also, I wonder if Charlene ever wrote another one to really send to Adam. Or, if this was misplaced on accident, if she decided it was lost serendipitously and therefore she let it be? Or possibly she stuck it in "Ishmael" thinking that one day Adam would go to a thrift store looking for his favorite book, and SERENDIPITOUSLY buy the used "Ishmael" obtaining her letter to him. Ooo it is just so cool to think about.
ReplyDelete