Only One More

Only One More               7-2-2013

By John W. Vander Velden

Shudder at the thought…that there could be a time when I would only be able to write one last piece.  Would I choose something meaningful to a family member…some words of wisdom to pass?  Would I find a desperate need to explain a past deed or beg forgiveness for some grievous action?  Would I pour myself into something masterful…that I would hope might endure.  I fear I would squander away the time and opportunity by the inability to make a decision.

Perhaps it must begin with what I hope my simple words could accomplish…why I write in the first place.  I am first and foremost a storyteller…It might be considered my crown or my curse.  Many stories roam around, within my cranium, yearning to find life upon the page.  What do these stories have in common…that is other than having the same source…well sorta’?  I feel each has some lesson buried inside…some obvious…others not so much.  But each of these stories are an extension of ME…whether I like or not. 

So what would I wish to say in my final written words?  Maybe it would be time to stop beating around the bush…go directly to what matters most.  So what matters most?  What truly needs to be said?  Decision time again…  I believe in the basic goodness of people…some might disagree.  The news shows so much of the other side, it would be easy to believe that all goodness had left on the “last train to the coast” (Don McLane, “Bye, Bye, American Pie”).  And I will not debate, that we are all so very far from perfect.  But I would wish I could convince others, that we are made by GOD and “GOD don’t make no junk”.  But how?

Maybe that’s what I’m doing.  Perhaps all the stories I have composed, and all the stories I will create, are patches on a quilt made up of their sum.  The happy stories the sad…the serious works and the lighthearted…the short essays and scarce bit of poetry…the short stories and the novels are all bits of the whole.  That together they make up the one thing I am to write.  Just as it takes many bricks to build a house, perhaps it takes all these stories…those written and those begging to see day’s light, to become the one thing that really matters.

(403 Words)