When "the end" finally comes

“There’s nothing like the feeling of bringing in a herd” is a City Slicker movie quote that I like. Three best friends, messed up in a midlife crisis, go to a dude ranch, searching for meaning. Our Lavender Ink Society didn't have a midlife crisis, we just had a crisis. One of our founding members passed away suddenly. We felt entrusted, as knights of honor, to finish her story, a love story about her parents. Wrangling cows from the movie became synonymous with the words that didn’t want to go where we needed them to be. After one year of not knowing how, the rodeo of plot sequence sits roped in front of us and Despite It All is ready for an agent. Not that I’m a weekend cowboy, but as a writer writing the last sentence, I felt those final, unused words "the end" and I’ve got to say there’s nothing quite like it.

What started as a conversation on my deck became a labor of love. “Sharon, how did you do it? How did you get published?” My friend, Lisa, needed to know. She needed my help. She burned with the desire to write her parents’ love story - he had been a Jew and she the daughter of a Nazi - true story. Lisa had a passion to capture what she had witnessed as a powerful tale of love's blind ability to overcome obstacles.  

We founded our writers group of four and poked our way around words and each other. She had gotten about twenty thousand words on the page, yet with Lisa gone her parents’ story was unfinished. Grief and love for our beautiful friend and her dream compelled us to pledge our fidelity, our singular loyalty to the task of finishing her book. Three women of different writing styles would attempt to overlay voices with Lisa's original writer’s voice. The task was daunting. 

We met with Lisa's mother over tea to understand the facts remembered. We zoomed with her daughters or met at our favorite pub, O'Brien's. With the writing not being our own, we took risks and tried a variety of approaches to craft this love story, a story of her parents and of our own hearts grasping to stay true to our friend’s vision.

Many times we wanted to quit. Life got full and we didn't know where to go in the story. Lisa, however, is special. Her passion compelled us to listen to the characters. The first anniversary of her death passed in July. We had his story. We had her story, but we still didn't have their story. We didn't have a complete novel to gift her family.

Motivation, the mysterious mistress of writers, showed up. The words weren’t just waiting for us to notice anymore. They persuaded us to sit down and write. As the last two chapters came into view, We felt the flow of the words harnessed as a team pulling to the last sentence. "The end" happened even though we don't say that anymore, and we felt amazing! We did the nigh impossible.

Today we met with Lisa's family for the handoff. Our promise stood fulfilled. We had finished just in time. Often when we do not think we can or know how we will complete a challenge, we just need to hold on and push through. That decision of I can't is when an amazing opportunity waits just on the other side. The only thing we can't do is say, "I can't." We just cannot give up. At long last, our friend has her story, her mother knows her husband's love lives on, and our writers group has a feeling there’s nothing quite like.