The Hardest Story To Write
Fifteen years ago, I wrote not the greatest story ever told, but surely one of the hardest ones to write – and to read. I was so distraught at its eventual rejection from a notable literary journal that I threw the essay away.
I kept the rejection letter though, as a reminder of how close I’d come to an aspiration I’d secretly held despite my being a mere hobby writer with few publications of note. I had things to say and sometimes they got out there, but mostly, I wrote to remember what no one, I thought, should ever forget.
My trashed article, entitled Special Need, was one of those passion pieces. It was about the many children with serious disabilities I’d known in my life – specifically, about encounters I and other caregivers had with them. I recalled it this morning as Marc and I discussed the heavy topic of “core woundedness” over morning coffee. (Don’t ask – it’s not unusual for us to finish thoughts from dreams).
The story I once wrote spilled out in the form of memory as I shared with my husband how confronting my woundedness freed me, or at least began to, when I was in my early twenties. Experience had changed me from the core, not quickly but through time. It all came back as I spoke, complete with faces, names, clear examples of how children imprisoned within disabilities became agents of my spiritual liberation; it’s through engagement with them I found the first real path into a life richer than I’d imagined it ever could be. So ironic – and so true.
Lacking my story, here is the handwritten rejection letter I received verbatim, which highlights the problem with its telling:
9/26/09
Dear Linda –
I owe you an apology. You sent a rewrite of your essay, “Special Need,” a long time ago, and clearly invested a lot of effort to it; and we’re only getting back to you now. We do face a lot of submissions (1,000 per month) but that’s no excuse for the length of time we’ve taken.
It’s a hard story you wrote, and a hard story to read. That’s what delayed us, frankly—every person here who had to read the story for us to reach a decision on it took longer than normal to do so. I myself started it once or twice and put it down, not because of your writing, but because I didn’t feel ready emotionally to read the story.
And now, unfortunately I’m writing to say we’re opting not to publish the story. I really wish I were writing with better news. It’s always hard to say no, especially when we ask an author to rework the piece.
I appreciate the compassionate and thoughtful way you handled your experiences with (the children)…I wish you peace and blessings.
Sincerely
XXXXXXX
I took this rejection personally. I felt deep anger on behalf of these institutionalized children, most without families, infrequently “seen” and rarely known by anyone, except for volunteers, or by the medical staff paid to be with them. Were all these children to die forgotten because of the conditions into which they’d each been born?
A few illustrative examples of the children who’d moved me so would be enough to make most weep, I suppose. How about encountering one hundred of them, each crib or bed holding a new little person to meet?
Had I not myself broken down myself the day I entered this “home” – one that functioned pretty well, considering its now outdated model of care? That day, a nurse named Irene saw me begin to lose composure and quickly ushered me into a large linen closet. “We’ve all been where you are,” she’d reassured me. “You get used to it…if you let yourself. But you don’t have to.”
Nearly all of the children I’d known there are dead now, but not forgotten. They’d offered me much, gave me myself in fact – all in exchange for little more than my curiosity, and my persistent presence.
Today in my little notebook, I listed as many of their names that I could remember, and smiled, thinking of the stories I’d tried so hard to tell.