Five Pages a Day (8 page)

The difficult research absorbed and exhausted me. I spent days in the University of Washington medical library, reading articles intended for doctors. I interviewed doctors who studied the brain, psychiatrists, and families of patients. I visited a hospital that had an entire ward of Alzheimer's patients, and toured nursing homes. It took me a year.

When the book was finished, I sent it to the agent who had been unable to sell
The Ransom at Blackberry Bridge
. She returned the manuscript. She was not interested in a book about a disease she had never heard of, and she didn't think any publishers would want to read it, either.

I decided to market it myself. I sent it to a university press, where an editor liked it and asked for some revisions. Encouraged, I plunged into the rewrites.

Before I finished, an excellent book called
The 36 Hour Day
, aimed at family members who care for people with Alzheimer's disease, was published. My editor decided there was no need for a second book on the subject. I put my manuscript away. By the time it became clear that Alzheimer's disease was far more common than first thought, and other books on the subject would be worthwhile, my research was out of date.

I had now spent two years writing two books that did not get published. Still, I didn't regret the year that I spent writing the Alzheimer's book because the knowledge I gained helped me understand and care for my father.

About that time, I went to a wedding, usually a happy event, but in this case I grew uneasy as I listened to the vows that were spoken. The bride, a lively young woman with a great sense of humor, solemnly promised to let her husband be head of the household and make all the decisions. I wondered how my friend could make such a pledge.

She had spent months planning the flowers, what the bridal party would wear, and the food for the reception, but clearly she had given no thought to the most important part of the wedding: the vows.

I wish I could have written those wedding vows for her, I thought.

I paid little attention to the rest of the ceremony, for I was mentally writing wedding vows. A book idea had just been born.

Beginning writers are often told to write about what they know best. I knew about love. I knew about a happy marriage. I knew my friend should not be agreeing to let her husband decide everything in what ought to be an equal partnership. (Less than two years later, she was divorced.)

The morning after the wedding, I called my minister. “Do many couples write their own wedding vows?” I asked.

“Lots of them want to,” he replied, “but they don't know how to go about it. Usually they end up using the standard vows. Then they'll add a poem or reading to personalize the ceremony.”

I called a Catholic priest, a Unitarian minister, and a justice of the peace and got the same response each time. Couples want to write their own personal vows, but they don't know how.

I checked
Books in Print
, a reference book that lists all books that are currently available, to see if there was already a resource for such couples. There wasn't, so I began writing original wedding vows, along with suggestions on how couples could use my vows as a starting point to write their own. I also wrote ring ceremonies and anniversary vows. Six months later, I had a book manuscript.

Once again I sent it to the agent who had tried to sell my novel but had returned the Alzheimer's book. She returned this manuscript, too.

“You write so well,” she said, “but I have no market for this book. None of the publishers I work with have published anything like this.”

This time, instead of crying over her letter, I got angry. They haven't published anything like this, I thought, because it's a new idea. Publishers always say they want fresh material, but now she can't sell it because it's
too
different.

This agent worked for a large agency and dealt with all the well-known publishing companies. If she saw no market for my book of wedding vows, I knew I had a problem.

I also knew that she wasn't the right agent for me, and I never sent her anything else.

Contemporary Drama Service, where I had published many of my plays, is a part of Meriwether Publishing, which publishes books. I submitted
Vows of Love and Marriage
to Meriwether, and they decided to publish it. I still get goosebumps when I remember learning that my first book would be published.

Vows of Love and Marriage
was published in 1979 and stayed in print for ten years. A paperback edition,
Wedding Vows: How to Express Your Love in Your Own Words
, is still in print.

Every writer looks forward to the day when the first copy of his or her book arrives. I had dedicated
Vows of Love and Marriage
to Carl, but he didn't know that. It began a tradition that has continued with every book: I don't tell who the book is dedicated to until the book is published. Then I give the first copy to that person.

I could hardly wait! Daily I imagined handing Carl that first copy of my first published book. He would be so excited and happy! Perhaps we would go out to dinner to celebrate, carrying a copy of the book to show to everyone we met. It would be a glorious, never-to-be-forgotten event.

Like so many things in life, it didn't quite work out as planned.

I lived in Washington, and my brother, Art, lived in Minnesota. Throughout the sixteen years of our father's illness, Art and I both went to California, where our parents lived, several times a year.

On the day my first book arrived, I was flying to California to visit my parents. The box of books came just before I had to leave for the airport.

I opened the package, admired the cover design, checked to be sure the dedication was right, and stuck one book in my suitcase to give to my mother. I left the rest on the dining room table, where I knew Carl would find them when he got home.

Later that night, by telephone, he told me how pleased he was by the dedication. We agreed it was a wonderful book, but our enthusiasm was dampened by worries over Father's worsening mental condition. The once-in-a-lifetime moment of seeing my first book in print was not as joyful as it should have been because my father was so sick.

I have used Alzheimer's disease many times in my writing. Anything that has such a major impact on my life will find its way into my work. The first time was my play,
Spirit!
One of my favorite characters, Esther, has severe memory loss. Like my father was, she is childlike and completely unaware of her former career. That play was written before my dad forgot how to feed himself.

I also used my experience in
Night of Fear
, a novel about a boy named T.J. whose grandmother has Alzheimer's disease. T.J. is appalled by Grandma Ruth's brain disorder and embarrassed by her behavior when his friends are there. He remembers the vital, intelligent woman she was, and wishes desperately that she could be that way again.

T.J., of course, is based on me—just as all my main characters are, the boys as well as the girls. They have my thoughts and my feelings because those are the thoughts and feelings I know best.

Often in the early years of Father's disease I shed bitter tears over the enormous injustice of this vibrant and intelligent man's mental decline.

After eight years of caring for him at home, Mother was tired and too thin. Father couldn't talk or dress himself. Twice he fell and couldn't get up again. It was hard to find reliable home health care. Although it had seemed unthinkable to let strangers care for him in an unfamiliar place, it was clear that soon we would have no other choice.

I flew to California again, and Mother hired someone to stay with Father one afternoon while we looked at nursing homes. After we returned from this sad task, I sat in the den and tried to distract myself with a magazine.

Soon Father shuffled into the den. He no longer spoke to me, but I believed that he still knew who I was. He smiled a docile, little-boy smile, and I knew he was glad to see me.

As I watched him, I remembered the piano duets we had played when I was growing up. I recalled family card games with my aunts and uncles, when Father always figured out which cards everyone else held. I thought of the many times when I'd shrieked that the swimming pool was too cold, and Father had replied, with a grin, “Just like a warm bath.”

I recalled how his good humor and thoughtfulness had cheered me and my roommates when I had polio. I remembered the outgoing businessman who had invited me to the Rotary Club's annual father-daughter luncheon, and the handsome man in a tuxedo who'd walked me down the aisle on my wedding day.

Impulsively, I went to him and said, “You have been a wonderful father to me.”

His eyes brimmed with tears.

I took his hands and spoke of all my special memories. Then I put my arms around him, drew him close, and whispered, “I love you.” His arms tightened around me.

At that moment, I knew that I would always love him, no matter what his physical or mental condition. I loved the bright, successful, fun-loving father that I used to have, but I also loved this elderly man with his childish ways and sweet smile.

I quit raging at fate and set out to keep Father as contented and comfortable as possible.

I treasure my memory of that day, thankful that I told him how much he meant to me while he was still able to comprehend. All too soon the day came when his mind was so imprisoned by Alzheimer's disease that my words could no longer scale the walls.

Alzheimer's Disease

From the ending of
Night of Fear:

Gently, T. J. helped her to her feet. Then he put his arms around her and held her close.

A deep love for the Grandma Ruth of his childhood filled T. J.'s heart. He had not realized until that night, when so many memories flooded over him, what an influence she had been on his life.
Wishing won't help … win with your wits… take action
. For the first time, he appreciated how much she had taught him, how his thinking and personality had been shaped by the person she had been. He knew he would always treasure his memories of that wonderful woman.

But this Grandma Ruth, the here-and-now Grandma Ruth, was special, too, and despite her Alzheimer's disease, he loved her, just the way she was. Never again would he waste time and energy longing for her to go back to her former self. He would quit denying the truth of her disease. He would quit wishing that she wasn't sick and take action to make her happy, if he could, because he loved this mixed-up old woman with her purse full of Monopoly money and her childlike smile, the one who thought he was David.

Tears dripped onto the keyboard as I wrote that scene, and I still cry every time I read it because it brings back the day in my parents' den when I hugged my father and spoke from my heart.

{ 10 }

At Last! Books for Kids

A
s my writing income gradually increased and our children finished college, Carl and I decided it was his turn to follow a dream. His hobby of restoring antique musical instruments had become more and more important to him. After thirty-five years in the dairy industry, he left to start a business restoring player pianos, crank organs, and other old instruments. His new occupation resulted in my second book.

For a time, he both refinished the exterior of pianos and rebuilt their mechanical parts. The finish on the wood often crinkles with age, and many pianos had cigarette burns in the wood or stains where drinking glasses had been set. Carl removed the old finish, returning the wood to its original beauty.

Over and over, I heard people tell him that they wanted to refinish their own pianos. “How do I do it?” they asked.

This question does not have a twenty-five-words-or-less answer. It isn't easy to refinish a piano. After enough people had asked Carl how to do it, I realized that perhaps I could write a how-to book.

I sat in Carl's workshop while he measured and mixed a batch of his own formula for stripping off the old finish. I watched him take a piano apart. This is necessary because otherwise the stripping solution drips onto the piano's internal parts.