“Do you think I’m crazy,” I asked Sandra after our stroll in the June evening’s twilight in what had been my great-grandmother’s little village in Scotland, “to want to bring her back to life? She’s been dead for well over a hundred years.”

“Not at all!,” Sandra, a local historian in that east-coast village of Kirriemuir, insisted. “If your heart tells you to pursue this, then that’s what you must do.”

So that’s what I did. Over the following seven years I spent every free moment attempting to recreate the life of the brave young woman whose name, I discovered in my research in Scotland, was Helen David Black, who bore my Scottish grandfather but died soon after his birth, only to become, on his death certificate in 1959, a nameless “Unknown.” That book, a historical novel titled JAMIE’S MUSE, was finally published in 2018.

Throughout the book’s gestation and well after its birth, Sandra Affleck of Kirriemuir (now 82) has been by my side, metaphorically speaking, lifting me up and urging me on. She signs her frequent e-mails to me, “Your Sister Across the Sea.” I’ve written about her several times in my WOW blogposts (see links below). I cherish our long and deep friendship. 

(Sandra Affleck at tea in Kirriemuir, Scotland)

Sandra is one of a number of dear friends who wrote to me personally in response to my previous WOW post, “Nobody,” in which I described my existential angst over the current state of world affairs. Sandra’s words of wisdom, I feel, should be shared with all:

“I think every caring person in the world feels as useless and impotent as you do, Bonnie. But we have to remember always that thousands of them make the decision to get out there and try to make a difference, in return for little recognition. Were we younger, we’d be right there in the field, but we recognise we’d only be a burden.

“So what can we ‘auld folk’ [that’s Scottish for “old people,” by the way] do? Of course we can financially support whatever action group or charity we feel vital, within our means. We can volunteer in charity shops or centres which are accessible to us. And of course people of faith can pray, as I know you do.

“What’s more, we can always offset the evil of which we hear by acts of kindness, forgiveness and support to those we come across in our own society. We should deliberately carry out an act of kindness every time we hear of another act of wickedness — then encourage the recipient to carry that on.

“When Jehovah’s Witnesses used to plague my front door, asking what I thought about the end of the world, and what I could do about it, I always said — and still say at every opportunity — all we can do is look upon our own lives like a stone thrown into a pool. What matters is the kind of ripples we make in that pool.”

My dearest, oldest friend, Maureen in Philadelphia, whom I met in New York fifty years ago when we both worked at the Public Broadcasting Service there, has made a lifelong practice of memorizing poetry and meaningful quotations. Her private input on my blogposts has been invaluable to me. In response to my inclusion of Emily Dickinson’s poem, “If I can stop one heart from breaking,” in my “Nobody” post, Maureen shared a similar quote by Edward Everett Hale, an American author, historian, and Unitarian minister, who was a contemporary of Emily’s: 

I am only one.

But still I am one.

I cannot do everything.

But still I can do something.

And because I cannot do everything,

I will not refuse to do

Something that I can do.

The kind, generous, encouraging, uplifting feedback I’ve received from real people (not Chinese bots) – both in public comments on the “Nobody” blogpost itself (please read them all! — https://blog.bonnieleeblack.com/nobody/) and in personal e-mail messages to me – have spurred me to write more posts from my heart, as the spirit moves me, and not throw in the towel, as I’ve lately been tempted to do. Writing these small posts is the “something that I can do” at this point in my life. So I guess I must do more of them.

Thank you to all WOW readers. This new one, “More,” which is number 551, wouldn’t exist without you.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

To learn more about my special “Sister Across the Sea,” Sandra, please go to these links:

• https://blog.bonnieleeblack.com/sandra-of-kirriemuir/
• https://blog.bonnieleeblack.com/sandra-of-kirriemuir-ten-years-on/