The Goddess Speaks
The Goddess Speaks
Shortcut to heaven
On Aug. 26 my friend Jan died. I'd known her for decades. Jan and I were both writers. Like me, she had big dreams. She wanted to go to Africa. She wanted to write children's books. Her poetry was always passionate, even erotic. You wouldn't have suspected that from the way she looked. For years she worked in a Manhattan bank. But she was unhappy there, feeling more like Wonder Woman disguised in a pinstriped suit than an executive assistant.
After I moved to Hawaii, we continued talking for hours on the phone. When I struggled with life, she offered me uplifting words. And she always sent me inspiring quotes. My favorite, from Winston Churchill, still hangs in my office. Jan wrote them in black Magic Marker on bright blue paper. The words are faded now. "Never, never, never, never give up."
I don't remember why we lost touch. At 43, I gave birth to my only child and found myself slipping away from single friends. I battled postpartum depression. I struggled with motherhood. Whatever the reasons, our conversations slowed to a halt.
And then I got the call from Jan's brother. She had died of cancer. The timing was awful for me. I had just returned from New York where my mother died of cancer, too.
But it was the details of Jan's life that shook me to the core. She died homeless. She had quit her job, lost her apartment and ended up living on the street. The picture of her life was too much for me to bear. She had been so alive, so full of hope. How could this have happened?
NIGHT AFTER NIGHT, I asked myself those questions. Finally, one evening, in the middle of a terrible fight with my husband, my grief exploded. She had dreams like me, I sobbed. What's going to happen to my life?!! It all seemed too random, too fragile.
For decades I dreamt of becoming a best-selling author. Whenever I felt like throwing in the towel, I'd talk to Jan. Or I'd gaze at her energetic handwriting, daring me, on behalf of Churchill, to never, never, never give up.
Slowly, over the years, I achieved some success. Yet I continued to struggle with money, with relationships, with motherhood, with self-acceptance.
The drama leading up to Jan's death seemed to shatter something precariously balanced inside me. That could be me, my mind taunted. I had always placed so much weight on "making it," driving myself hard to "succeed."
When my mother died, a sobering realization hit me: In many ways my drive for success was really to please her, to save her from what I deemed a sad life. Suddenly I saw how I had been spending most of my life collecting "points." Points that would somehow make me a good person. Bestseller ... 100 points. Thousands in the bank ... 75 points. And my mother was the great point collector. With her death a threatening storm loomed. The point collector is no more. Now what?
Then Jan dies homeless. The twists and turns of her life led her to sleeping on park benches. Apparently, she refused to get a growth on her leg treated. She refused help from friends and family. She ended up dying of a tumor the size of a golf ball.
Where was her erotic, vivid poetry now?
Did Jan fail? Have I succeeded? Should I pity her? Do I revere myself? Was her life a waste? Does my life have more meaning? If she was capable of giving up, what about me? I stared hard at that blue paper scrawled with her faded handwriting. "Never, never, never, never, give up." I wanted to burn it.
BUT THEN I recalled something wise someone once said about getting into heaven. You don't get in by just being a good person, they said. There's a terribly long line of churchgoers and environmentalists waiting to march through those pearly gates.
A shortcut exists. You just tell St. Peter a really good story -- an entertaining one -- your life story, the juicy version full of highs and lows. That will guarantee your entrance.
So with that in mind -- with eyes to appreciate good drama -- and with a heart to enjoy the roller-coaster ride that must always accompany good drama, I gaze back at Jan. Passionate. Angry. Inspiring. Secretly erotic. A poet. A sister. A friend. A woman who wanted to dance naked in the moonlight. A woman battling depression. A woman who spent the last year of her life on the streets of New York.
It's a good story. A dramatic one. It's going to make St. Peter laugh and cry.
And it's going to get Jan to the front of the line.
Marcia Zina Mager is a freelance writer and the author of six books, including the international bestseller "Believing in Faeries: A Manual for Grown-ups." "The Goddess Speaks" is a Tuesday feature by and about women. Write "The Goddess Speaks," 7 Waterfront Plaza, Suite 210, Honolulu 96813; or e-mail features@starbulletin.com
The Goddess Speaks is a column by and about
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