When I started this blog (such an ugly word, that. Can I call it something else? When I started this ripple? this elderberry? this donnybrook? I don’t know, those are just some words I like...) I imagined that it would be a place for me to explore my more enlightened, high-minded interests. This is not only because I am a little bit of a snob, but also because it seemed like it would be more interesting to read and write about the geological history of Eastern Parkway, or the great tradition of pet biographies (POST TO COME) than, say, "Magazines I Like to Read". I notice that I just called pet biographies high-minded. So be it.
But life is not all glaciers and
marmosets. Life is also diet Dr. Pepper and lawn ornaments. And I embrace it all! Yes, life is about so very many things, but above all, perhaps, it is about this simple fact: We are all going to die someday.
A little morbid, yes, but true nonetheless. And if there is one woman who has made it her mission to constantly remind us of this fact, and who yet gives us the same kind of pleasure provided by the aforementioned diet Dr. Pepper, that woman is
Lurlene McDaniel.
Either you were just drowned by a warm, wonderful flood of childhood memories, or you have no idea what I am talking about.
Ms. McDaniel is the author of many young-adult fiction books, almost all of which feature a terminally ill teenager (usually a girl). Sometimes they have cancer (they in fact often have cancer, for cancer, as we know, bespeaks innocence, pathos and wasted beauty), sometimes they need a heart transplant, sometimes they have cystic fibrosis. Occasionally it is the boyfriend of the female protagonist who is tragically ill. Frankly, it doesn’t matter. The point is they are young, they are very, very sick and they are not getting better.
I
loved these books when I was a kid. Particular favorites included
Don’t Die, My Love;
Sixteen and Dying and
Baby Alicia is Dying. I could write an entire post about that last one, the cover image and jacket copy of which can, I think, speak for themselves:
"Desi thinks it's totally unfair that innocent baby Alicia was born HIV positive. Now the eight-month-old Alicia lives at Childcare because she was given away by her sick teenage mother. Desi can relate to feeling unloved. Her parents give her all the material things she needs, but there seems to be a wall between her mother and herself."
Something to chew on, hm?
BAID aside, I mostly enjoyed stories about young, white, relatively privileged kids-- kids like myself-- slowly dying. I hoped feverishly that the characters would recover, while in my heart of hearts I felt a deep, sick satisfaction in knowing that they would not. McDaniel doesn’t really write books with happy endings. In response to a question in the "Ask Lurlene" section of her website, she writes,
‘I know sad stories aren't for every reader, but it's the kind of story that most of my readers like from me. When I write "happy" books, many readers complain. So I focus on what I do best---stories that might bring a tear, but that focus on real life (where happily ever after rarely occurs). And while the books may not have "happy" endings, I try to give readers a satisfying ending---life is full of trouble and matters out of our control. How we deal with troubles determines our own character.’So true. I think the key here, aside from the universal human fascination with death, is that all the characters in McDaniel's books are just a little older than I was when I read them. They are TEENAGERS, which is all I dreamt of being before I became one. And not only are they teenagers, they are teenagers who are made old before their time. And there is a certain type of child, of which I was one, who really wants to be old before her time. She wants death thrust upon her, if only imaginatively, because it seems a small price to pay to gain the wisdom, glamor and prestige of the dying. I also have a chronic illness myself, but let's not discuss that here! (I will only say, in relation to that, that McDaniel started writing about dying children when her own son was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, which seems to be just a little bit twisted and melodramatic. But who am I to judge?)
I had completely forgotten about these books until recently. I remembered individual titles, but not that they were all written by the same person. I think this is really a testament to the fact that these books loomed large in my youthful mind, each one its own distinct world of graceful misery. Lord, I just can't wait to have kids, so Lurlene can teach them what this life is all about.
I leave you with a sampling of Lurlene McDaniel titles:
She Died Too YoungMother, Help Me LivePlease Don't DieMourning SongThe Girl Death Left BehindSomeone Dies, Someone LivesWhen Happily Ever After Ends
It's not just because I secretly want to live in Maine, either. Though I do spend time at work using the googlemaps satellite function to look at various towns in Maine. I pretend I am a gull on my way from Nova Scotia....
