The Green Pencil

The Author and her eldest when we gathered to scatter Jo's ashes

Remembering Jo

I wrote this story about Jo for my students to have an
example of a non-fiction short story. Anyway, I thought you
might like to read it. It may make you cry. I did when I
read it to my class.

Sarah

A Pencil’s Worth

As I sit down to write something that words cannot begin to express, I reach for my favorite pencil. It won’t be able to do justice to the plethora of memories that cannot be reduced to simple words on a page because pencils don’t have magical powers. But this one, this special one, has a spirit of its own. It may look like an ordinary pencil to you, but it has value beyond comprehension. Yes, it’s just wood; a regular, mundane, ordinary stick of wood with lead on one end and rubber on the other. It didn’t cost a lot. In fact, it didn’t cost me a thing. It was a gift: a priceless gift of many from her. It’s as green as the grass I helped her plant in her front yard when she finally got out of that raggedy ol’ trailer with the green shaggy carpet. Green, it keeps coming up. How ironic that green reminds me of birth, of life, of newness. There are so many plants on her back porch that are green. Funny that she would have so many places for frogs and lizards to hide when she was deathly afraid of them. Green again.

I’d be named Franchesca if it weren’t for her. Thank God she was around to help my mother convince my father that I didn’t need a spic name in South Georgia . It was one of many favors she’s done for me. The list is endless really. It would probably be easier to tell you what she hasn’t helped me do. That list would be much shorter. She even let me borrow her car once. It was a navy blue Pontiac as heavy and solid as she was at the time. Strong and steady, dependable like the pull of the tide. Little did she know that I skipped school in it the week after I turned 16. And that I wasted an entire tank of gas exploring places where I felt the most at home, trying to stay off main roads to avoid getting caught. Hilary and I still laugh about how we got away with it. We never got away with anything. I told her years later of course, and we all laughed about it. Funny how time changes things.

Just like the pull of the tide, she pulled you into her world and made you want to know things. Her house so full to the brim with books, maps, music of all kinds, bells from all over the world. My love of words and books began by her example. My fascination of foreign places and foreign ideas was fostered by her interest in all things. She had a pocket size dictionary that I always admired. My admiration of dictionaries and of her started when I too was pocket sized. I wonder where it is now?

As we go through her house I can’t decide exactly what I should take. It seems so wrong invading her space. She was such a private person. But as I stand in her living room amid her things, the books, the maps, the music, I am flooded with the urge to take everything. To take it all so I can fill the void left in my heart and in my life by her death. To have things that remind me of her all around me so that I can feel her presence. Funny that after all she taught me, I stood in front of a classroom teaching as she lie dying in the back of an ambulance, and I was too afraid to go to her. Knowing that if I went, I would be accepting the inevitable. Her time had come: much too early, much to my surprise. So as I stood among her things, I picked up this green pencil. I hope she used it. I like to think she did. I like to think that as I write these words she is with me, inspiring me, urging me to continue on without her. But I can’t help but realize that just as the lead inside of this pencil will one day run out, her time with me here on Earth already has.