Chapter 24

I just learned that I got a short story published. I told my friend Andrea that I’d been recruited, and she said we’d have to celebrate. That’s what I need, celebration. I haven’t been celebrating enough lately. I need to remember that life is wonderful despite its horrors, or even, because of them, the horrors burning away all weaknesses and impurities until there is nothing but pure, strong metal. I had started to learn how to celebrate life properly, then allowed myself to be influenced otherwise. No more. I made this decision last night, even before hearing about my story. If Donna wants to be unhappy and miserable, I should not allow that to affect me. Why should I be miserable just because she is?

A lesson Sarah still needs to learn. I know after I left her she went to bed and started crying again. I understand. I really do. She’s been betrayed, and betrayal hurts. But such betrayals can cause you to become stronger or weaker, depending on if you turn it into yourself, to burn away the weaknesses, or turn it outward onto other people, distrusting them because of the betrayal of another. If you do that, you cannot love again. You will have forgotten how to love until you learn to forgive, forgiving then everyone who was never guilty to begin with. She will then have to relearn how to see the world as beautiful.

That is what I’ve had to do again. I thought I had already done it once, but sometimes lessons have to be relearned. I think it’s because of my grandmother’s cancer. No one can understand my reaction to learning she has only a few months to live. They do not understand how I can wait to finish the semester before going to see her. The fact is, I know my grandmother would not want me to ruin the semester just to come see her. She would say my grades are too important, even though she wants to see me now. Also, people do not seem to realize that my grandmother is only dying -- she’s not dead. While everyone else will be mourning her death too soon, I will go home to celebrate her life, to talk to her about what is joyful and beautiful, to turn her fears and darkness into something beautiful if I can. She deserves to feel joy at this time, to be happy, not to be depressed. Why spend what little time you have on earth mourning your own passing? So many people do this their entire lives, not even having the specter of death lurking near. Enough of sorrow! Enough of sadness! From now on I plan to celebrate life, to see the beauty in even its sadness and sorrows, to make something positive out of the negative without building illusions to hide the horrors. Life is sorrows and sadness, but we can either embrace those sorrows and make it part of us, to become sorrowful ourselves, create illusions under which to hide the truth of sorrows and sadness, so doing nothing for it, or acknowledge its presence, but not its power, using these sorrows to recreate ourselves as something new and stronger, something more beautiful, something that can see the true beauty in the world. My grandmother is a beautiful person. It is that beauty I want to celebrate. I won’t mourn her death until it comes. Even then, I hope I have the strength to turn that into beauty too.