I write because I must

I write because I must.

If I don’t write, he’ll die a second time. Now he lies in limbo, between life and death. He waits to be released.

He entrusted it to me; I promised I’d write it and this promise binds me tighter than any physical force ever could.

There are many things I promised in my past that I never delivered. But this promise, until I fulfill it, can never leave me. It is a part of me that haunts the back of my mind. It is always there, even when I am tempted to give up. It has been a strength when all around me was only a bleak void from hope. Before I met the only two people who believe in me now, it was there.

It makes the work day easier to bear, it provides balance to my overpaid day job.

It reminds me of a conversation I had with God when I was eight:

God: What would you most like to be when you grow up?

Me: I want to be a writer

God: Are you sure? Do you know what you ask for, to be a writer? (Of course you don’t know, you’re only eight!)

Me: I want to be a writer

God: Will you promise to stick it out? There will be difficult times. Your life may not be what you expect.

Me: I want to be a writer

God: Then I will make you more innocent, so that you will feel your teenage years more. A writer you shall be, as long as you do not give up.

Then, when I turned thirteen, I forgot my conversation with God. I wanted to be a lawyer or architect or businesswoman. But I found I could not stop reading.

God never forgot. He gave me an adolescence that can only be redeemed through the written word. I didn’t know then why I suffered; now I know.

It was not until I returned to the country of my blood that I remembered. It was not until I watched a young boy drown while he was accompanying his cousin around the country that I remembered. When I felt so sorry for my aunt that my heart could break that I remembered again.

It is all I have about me that could ever make any difference.

I’m afraid that, several years from now, I will find this piece again and cringe with embarrassment. That will mean I have failed. But the promise keeps me going; and I pray it does not allow me to give up.

Now I work to be worthy of the story.

I write because I remember.