If you happen to follow my facebook page or twitter page you know that I'm writing about Anorexia. If you don't follow, well now you know. It's not just the subject of Anorexia that I'm writing about it's about a person struggling with the disease.
I was on a road trip with my husband, I want to say it was Memorial Day, but I could be wrong. We were driving to Pops, a soda/burger joint off route 66 in Arcadia, Oklahoma. My husband took route 66 all the way to Pops. We haven't been on a road trip in a while, or really a drive in general in Oklahoma. Then again there really aren't many places of interest to go, but that's besides the point. As we drove the scenery reminded me of the drive to my family farm in Tiff City, Missouri. There was a lot of farm land, postage stamp towns, and rural areas. It was on this drive that I began to think about the family farm (that is no longer in the family) and everything that has happened in the past three years concerning family.
I had lost a cousin from complications brought on by anorexia nervosa, the family farm because my grandfather had developed Alzheimer's, and my grandfather because of the Alzheimer's. Those three things weighed heavily on my mind while we were driving. More-so my cousin's untimely, almost pointless death. We all wanted her to get better. We all tried to talk to her. We all tried to get her help and she refused everything that was offered. Anorexia had a strong hold on her and even after her death we all felt there was something more we should have done. If we would have done :blank: then maybe she would be here with us today. In reality we all did what we knew to do. We all put forth effort into helping her and she made the choice to not seek out the help.
I began thinking about how un-fair my cousin's death was. I began thinking about what she never got to accomplish, what she wanted, and what she talked about. She wanted the family farm. She tried to learn how to run the equipment and repair fences, and plant vegetables. She talked about living there one day and how much she loved the farm. She also talked about marriage and having a family. It seemed to me those were the things she wanted. How cruel life was that she didn't get what she wanted. How cruel that a disease took everything from her.
In a flash I saw my cousin; I saw her getting better. I saw her achieving everything she wanted. I saw the story she should have had. I saw the life she was supposed to live. I wanted to cry. I felt her story rising from within and I knew I had to write her a different ending. I could give her what she wanted in print that she never got in life. I could give her the life she was meant to have. While it wouldn't bring her back, her memory would live on.
I made a note in my phone, wrote down what came to me and where the story should end. When I got home I wrote the first 1500 words. I wanted to get something down before I became too busy and forgot. Then I waited. The challenge was to portray her life without compromising her relatives, or really upsetting anyone. I decided I was going to have to fictionalize some facts about her life and write some people out. This story was about her. Her attributes would, for the most part, stay the same it would be everyone else I would have to alter.
So far it's been a challenge but I'm getting there and there will be a lot of smoothing out when I edit. I'm hoping to write my cousin's story and give her the ending she should have had. I'm hoping to amend the wrongs in real life and restore balance through fiction. It seems like an impossible task but I'm going to give it my best shot.
