I know someone can tell me that this will never happen---that no one will want to see what I've dreamed of---that they can't help---that I'm going to have to work a job I have no interest in the rest of my life--that I'm dreaming too big or being unrealistic. I know that. I've already heard it in ways.

I know. I know. I know.

My mother would have loved the internet and she would have loved Bill Nye, the Science Guy. She would have loved email. She kept in touch with friends around the country by letters consistently. She was a constant communicator in letters. She had many friends. I tried to keep up with them through the years but have not been good about it.

Her friends loved her.

We went on trips. She liked bus tours. We went to Washington DC; Nashville, TN; Canada and saw the Queen Mother. She was going somewhere and her entouerage stopped on the street and one of her body guards talked to my mom. He gave me a wooden Toy Soldier type doll; we would often take trips to Nashville, Indiana where they had music shows and is a quaint town. They have a John Dillenger museum and I was obsessed with it for some reason; Gettysburg, PA and Washington, DC again on our own though we took my cousin and grandmother with us. We went through West Virginia on our way and there were these winding roads and winding roads and more winding roads. We got lost in Maryland and she always said there wasn't a place she couldn't find her way out of--"I've never been anywhere I haven't found my way out of"

She was someone to marvel at.

She always wanted me to think about manners. She would tell me that one was supposed to act a certain way in certain situations, formal situations, about putting napkins on your lap, etc.

I always wanted to see her teach. I always wanted her to take me to school with her, but she couldn't. I felt robbed of that, for a long time. I always wanted to sit in the back of the room and watch her. I count her students as lucky for being able to have her for a year, as their teacher. To see her teach. To experience it. She was my idol.

I'm not sure if I mentioned this yet, and I'm mentioning a lot of things from my book, but the best and only tribute she got for teaching was from the assist. Superintendent's wife, when she was "put out." The assist. Superintendent's wife is my 2nd cousin, I believe. I believe it's 2nd cousin. She's a cousin. She was married to the assist. Super (he died a couple years before my mom from a heart attack) and I called Linda the day that my mother was dying. She came over and told my mom she had been a good teacher, and Linda was tearful. My mother was "in and out" and talked about decorating her room and picking out books. This is in my book. It was the only tribute she got, and it was meaningful. It was very, very meaningful. I'd kind of like Madonna to play her. I want Charlie Sheen to play Denver, though his and her name are different in the book.

My life is hell right now and my house looks like my life. My house needs a great cleaning and I do not have the will to do it, though I have to. I can barely do anything. I am tired of trudging when I don't know for sure if there's a place I'm trudging to---I'm tired but I have to keep doing it. Ellen DeGeneres, I hope you are reading. I know you don't produce movies but I'm sure you know people who do or know people who know people who do.

Cindy


Someone, hear me, see me, know me---know this project that has to be completed. It's not just any story or any movie---it's about an amazing woman who lived in spite of defeat, until she died.

Cindy