Toward the start of September, Alison Kent brought an article by Barabara Samuels to my attention, and she excerpted this piece:

“…let’s declare the month of September a month of counting blessings. Celebrate the Writing Life month. Each day, let’s consciously focus on the aspects of writing that brought us into it in the first place, the things that keep us doing it, and the things we will leave behind as our legacy.”

These words are particularly ironic (hey, English major and writer - I look for these things), especially with the battles I’ve struggled with for the past two weeks. Celebrating Writing Month struck a cord, because I do count my blessings, and what brought me back to writing was my daughter. And while I am forever grateful to have regained my creativity, it was at a high price, since it decided to come crashing back into my life when my daughter was really sick.

This week, I’ve been fighting with insurance companies, having endless conversations with anyone and everyone who can help me get my daughter’s operation covered. Needless to say, writing has been at a minimum. When I did write this week, it was almost with a sense of guilt, a sense of, ‘isn’t there something else I should be doing to push our insurance company?’

For a short while this week, I even thought, about quitting. Giving up. Giving up writing and giving up the insurance fight and just looking for the better, easier alternative.

But then I found the excerpt and I realized that what keeps me writing is to show my daughter and myself that quitting is never an option. So no matter what happens with my writing, with her operation, my legacy to her will be to keep up the good fight, with writing and with the insurance company. That will be my legacy to her, and that is something I will count as my blessing.

Steph T.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 10th, 2004 at 5:34 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.