Yesterday I started reading the book I was going to write.
I opened the first page, read the second, kept on going and a strange sense of déjà-vu came over me.
I know this road, this is exactly how it happened to me, this is the kind of tale I wanted to tell.
But while I was toying with the idea, even put the first draft on paper somebody else beat me.
Someone who did not spend hours, and days, wondering about the qualities of the story, and its' value to mankind. Somebody who did not nudge everybody they knew with requests for validation. An aspiring writer who felt that their tale has the right, like any other tale, to be put on paper for everyone to see.
She is about my age, the writer. It is her first book. It's a story about family, her family, and about the pressing feeling that everyone has a story worth hearing and these untold stories without a loving hand will disappear forever. That is the validation.
It is that simple.
I think of the hard work I put into the initial draft, the research into my family roots, I conducted for years, before I felt that I had most of the puzzle figured out. The draft still sitting on my desktop waiting to be finished and I feel sad. Who is going to tell their story now?
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