Dear Cadence Loewen,
Thank you so much for your letter, and I appreciate your concern. And yes, of course, do feel free to pray for me. I don’t mind at all. When I first received your letter I didn’t recognise your name, but something happened recently and I realised that I know you! Your mom and dad were good friends of mine way back in the late 70s, early 80s. I apologise if my calling them your mom and dad upsets you. Maybe you don’t see it that way, and that’s perfectly understandable.
The last time I saw you was when you were just a few weeks old, just days before Jackie and Tim, your birth parents, had their accident. A bunch of us were hanging out, smoking pot in this field behind the golf course, near Kokomo Road, and Jackie and Tim drove up in Tim’s brother’s old Vauxhall. Smoking pot, by the way, is something I don’t do any more, don’t worry, but we were all young back then, seventeen years old, and there wasn’t much else to do. So Jackie and Tim drove up and were all excited and happy and wanted to show everyone their new baby, you. Cadence, they said, these are our friends, and yours, too. You were so beautiful, and still are, by the way. When I saw your photo in the newspaper I almost had a heart attack, you look so much like Jackie did at that age.
Tim let us all hold you, even though we were a little stoned, and we all started crying, even the guys. We were so blown away by you. Everything about you was perfect, you had Tim’s little ears and Jackie’s long, skinny fingers, and they were so crazy in love with you and each other and life and the whole big, amazing idea of being your parents. They didn’t do any drugs that day, or ever again, I’m sure of it. And they didn’t smoke around you, or play music too loud, and Jackie was always pulling your little toque over your ears so you wouldn’t get cold, and telling everyone to be very, very careful with your fontanelle, that soft spot on a baby’s head, before the plates of the skull fuse together.
Look, she said, you can see her heart beating in her head. She’d pull your toque up a tiny bit so we could have a look. Tim told us you loved Warren Zevon and Jackie had embroidered the words ‘I like to rock’ on this little sleeper you had. Tim said ‘Jackie was like this machine, man, in labor. She was total business, told everyone to fuck off, she was doing this thing. She was taking charge. She was amazing, man. I love her so much.’ Jackie said she just couldn’t stop staring at you. She couldn’t believe that you were hers. She said she wished she could always stare at you, all day and all night, all the time, for the rest of your life. That would be her full-time job, she said.
And then we all built this little monument to you out in the field. We made it out of rocks and sunflowers and we all wrote little notes to you with lipstick because nobody had a pen, welcoming you to the world, and we put them under the rocks and some of the guys poured a little bit of Wild Turkey over it, like a toast to you, to a long, happy life, and we spelled out the name C-A-D-E-N-C-E with little rocks in a circle around the bigger monument, and then we all sang that Cyndi Lauper song, ‘Time after Time’, because it was the only one we all knew the words to, and it seemed appropriate, even though it was also cheesy.
So that was quite a while ago, almost twenty years ago. Most of us left town after high school. Then, a week ago, I got the news that my mom was very sick and so I came back home to help my older sister take care of her. I was sitting at my mom’s bedside, looking through the local newspaper and that’s when I saw your picture in the announcements section and thought holy shit! It’s Jackie! Except of course it wasn’t, it was you. I showed it to my mom and she told me that after Jackie and Tim’s accident, Tim’s parents had raised you. She said they did a very good job, too. She mentioned that Tim and Jackie’s deaths had been so hard for them to accept because they hadn’t been saved or baptised before they died, and how they agonised over how they would tell you that, how it would make you feel, knowing you wouldn’t ever be able to see them again, not even in heaven. She said you have perfect attendance at church and sing in the choir and even teach Sunday school to the little kids. That’s amazing. And now you’re off to do missionary work in Belize. Wow! I wish I’d been that focused when I was nineteen.
Cadence, I do wish you all the very best with your work, and in life, now and in the future. It was an honor to have met you that day out behind the golf course, and to have had Jackie and Tim as my friends. They were such great kids, and parents. I know I have a reputation in town as a God-hating atheist, but it’s not true. I’m an agnostic, really, and I think about the existence or non-existence of God all the time. One thing that does bring me closer to ‘embracing the idea of God’ as you very aptly put it, is my memory of all us kids in that field. I can see us all perfectly, the sky, the sunflowers, Tim’s brother’s old Vauxhall parked in the clearing, Jackie showing us the soft spot on your head, your little I Like to Rock sleeper, and your tiny fists, and how we all gathered around our home-made monument to you, holding hands, singing, a circle of love and happiness and reverence for your precious life, and such joy in the moment. All because of you.
Again, Cadence, I do wish you all the very best in Belize, and wherever else you may be. I’ll be thinking of you.
In friendship,
Miriam
p.s. By the way, Warren Zevon died recently, but his music still rocks, if you’re interested in checking it out.