elara_bonnie

1620,

Sylvia, I do remember my promise to write to you, and I am praying to God for your good health. I am sorry my letters have been far in-between, and I confess a terrible event sends me urgently to my desk to write to you.

My fingers are going numb as I write in this bitter season. Even if nature’s blooms try in vain to push themselves out of the ground and the world stubbornly reaches for spring, my heart knows nothing of it and I feel heavy and dead. Nathan has run away! As you read these words, my only brother sails to Virginia!

It is just father and I now and our little spot in London has become lifeless and dark.  I feel as if part of my soul has been ripped away. Sylvia, my beloved friend, how I wish you were at my side!

When you left us to marry, father fell into poor spirits. Business is hard. London has withered much this winter and work is poor. It was hoped that Nathan would take on father’s trade and help, but the boy is as stubborn, wild, and restless as the sea he sails upon. You know as well as I that Nat always wished to forge his own way! Father’s plans mean nothing to him!

Yet, despite hardships, the three of us have always managed and took comfort in our love and company.  You must believe my surprise when Nathan told me of his horrible plans to leave, and worse yet, to a murderous heathen filled land so far away from us and surely away from the grace of god!

A captain sailing for the colonies convinced my brother to sign a contract of indenture.  A captain! A captain neither knows nor cares for love or family! A name on his paper does not stand for a living breathing soul, but only as a promise of gold in his pocket!

The Virginia Company shall keep poor Nat for eight years alone just to work off his passage. Hard labor awaits him, and he shall be in the care of strangers. However, he feels that once his indenture is over, he can make his own way and prove his worth. 

I know not much of trade and property, politics, or the ways of the colonies, but I do know that Nat is still just a boy! He will be alone and friendless in this New World.  I believe any prospects there are fragile and perilous even to the strongest and wisest of men.  How could I not see this as the death of my brother?

How could he do this to us? How could he do this to poor father, who holds Nathan closer to his heart than anyone on this earth?  (More than me, perhaps even more than God in heaven, though I know it is wicked to say so.)

Worse of all Nathan gave me the grave task of telling father. He did not have the heart to tell him himself!  Though I know Father’s pleas or anger cannot save Nathan from his actions. He signed the contract. The deed is done.

Oh Sylvia, Nathan doesn’t know that he has forced me to break a promise. I swore to mother, rest her soul, that I would always watch over him and protect him! How can I do that if he sails across the sea to a place so wild and full of savage people! We always hear about sickness and death in the colony, even though the Company tries to lure the poor and orphaned away with tales of glory and prosperity. Only desperate fools would believe these stories! Is Nathan in such dire straits, or fallen so far from god, that he should risk his life and our happiness on such a venture? 

Despite my anger and anguish I did meet up with him at the docks to say goodbye. How could I not? I tried to persuade him to escape but his decision held fast. His eyes and heart had turned towards that terrible place across the sea, towards the unknown, away from home and safety, away from father and me, I fear forever.

These are the events that have happened dear Sylvia and I pray that you do not forget me, but have mercy and pity my miserable state. I hope that you are well and that you shall write soon.

17, May 1620
Your beloved friend,

Rebecca Dowler

Blackwall, London


3rd Person entry:

            Rebecca ran into the room. She sat at the table, furiously pulling out a pen and paper. So much had happened!  She needed to write a letter to Sylvia.  Her cold fingers could barely grasp around her pen as she slowly etched out the words. 

            The room was too dark, and she was so upset it was hard for her to focus. The candle on the table flickered as drafts of air escaped from the window in the corner.  The little flame mockingly danced back and forth, filling the room with darkness and light, darkness and light.

            In frustration she pushed herself away from the table and sat by the window. The cloudy white world outside cast a gray pall over her paper.  It was much colder by the window, but it was impossible for her to write in the dark.  After a few moments of adjusting her eyes to the light, she picked up her pen again and attempted to master her thoughts.

            How hard it was for her to figure out what words to use, and when!  There were so many ways to explain what had happened. She wished she could write like her father. When he sat down to write, words seemed to spring from his head as if mind and pen were connected by an invisible cord.

            With a sigh she decided to start at the beginning and remembered when her brother caught up with her on the street and described his plans. The memory of it caused a salty tear to fall from her cheek.  The tear landed on the paper melting her words into a blurry pool.   She tried to dab the stain but stopped herself.  “It would be better to ignore it and continue writing!”  She needed to finish the letter and get it to Sylvia as soon as possible.

            “Becca?” Her father’s voice echoed from beneath the stair. His voice was like shattered glass in the silence. Rebecca’s thoughts broke free and scattered in her head.  The pen fell from her hand and she noticed once again how cold and numb her fingers were.

            She could hear the soft creek from his steps slowly getting louder as he made his way up to the room.  She quickly placed the letter it in her pocket.

            Her father’s tired face appeared in the doorway. “You wanted to tell me something?”

Yesterday the doc (and the handsome resident tee hee) informed me that the Cancer left town. Yay!

So as weird as this sounds, that was the easy part. At least for me...Ok I think that was the easy part for the doctors too. We all knew this cancer just wanted to destroy tissue but not to threaten anything else- like my life. And it did a good job. Cancer moved in, had a wild party and now we are left with the clean up.

I have two choices
One is to take skin from my forehead the other is to take skin from my left arm. The forehead will be scarred and my hairline would be damaged but the skin on my nose would probably match closer to the coloring of my face.

The arm is a trickier procedure because they have to create a template of skin that will fit the shape of the defect on my nose. The template will also include a long stretch of skin that will reach an artery on the side of my face near the jaw line. The skin and arteries from my arm will be lifted and attached to my face using a microscope.  The nose part will be sutra-ed on, and then there will be like an umbilical cord of skin that will feed the nose skin blood from the artery on the side of my face. This will stay like this for a month to keep the new skins location alive.


The surgery will take 8 hours and then afterwards I will stay in the hospital for about a week. They have to make sure that there isn't any blood clotting.


Ok so yeah to be honest all the Mohs surgeries to get rid of the Cancer were pretty straight forward: "We will just cut out the bad parts."

This is the part of the journey that scares me.


I know it will be ok but, yeah I'm scared.

After the surgery this flap will stay there for about a month, I probably will turn into a vampire and only come out at night!

After a month I will have to come in every couple of weeks to get the new skin shaved off and trimmed so it starts looking like a nose.


When it's all done they say it will look great, but my nose will be lighter than the rest of my face so I will have to start wearing makeup and stuff to cover that up.



I think I’m going to go home for the weekend. I need to be around people and keep busy.

Write me a tale of the terrible tide!
Dampened lines of wild sea rages!
The past revisited in your mind
and given life on yellow'd pages.

-Me

I wrote this a year ago I think. I have no idea what for but I  just found it on my computer.
Is it worth continuing?