Dear Joan Didion

Dear Joan Didion:
This is a brief letter to you... one I will never send, but had to write all the same. I just read your book, "The Year of Magical Thinking" and I want to thank you. It is not because I am a widow, nor do I necessarily think I will be one anytime soon. It's not because I want to be a widow, either. At least, I don't think I do. But I know I just read, rather swallowed, your book in less than 2 days... your life, your words. Thank you for giving me a piece of yourself, like a piece of an oatmeal cookie, broken off and lovingly shared. I know you still have most of it, but the morsel you shared touched me deeply.

I confess, I've never read any of your other books. I will probably try to now. Maybe. I can't even promise that. My reading swings in great swaths. But I am grateful for reading this one. I am grateful for the honesty of it. I am grateful for the gift of yourself through this book. I am moved by the "you-ness." You are a person in time that I now know... fractionally.

You say, "Leis go brown, tectonic plates shift, deep currents move, islands vanish, rooms get forgotten." ... but life moves on. I can confirm, we move on. We face the day. We are born each day from the "womb of the dawn" (Ps 110:3).

Grief and mourning: you experienced them with such great depth. I believe you felt them so because you loved much. There is tremendous power in that kind of love... in that kind of sorrow. It is a branding. I know it, because you shared it through your words and in doing so, you branded me. Thank you.