Earlier this week, Dr. Susan James arranged for Kim Herzog, Rebecca Marsick, and me to send her letters so they could be delivered to Dr. Rose Brock on her birthday. Rose is the mastermind behind the North Texas Teen Book Fest we attended.
Susan put together a package with our letters, a book about writing letters, and a necklace to thank her for her hospitality. It arrived the day after her birthday, but our love and respect made it to her anyway the night before in an impromptu cocktail party on ZOOM.
Here's what my letter said and I post it here simply because I like to keep track of such things in online spaces so that one day in the future I can find it simply by doing a Google Search.
Dear Rose,
This Frog has never written a flower before, although he’s seen them abloom from his pond for many years. Throughout history his students have brought roses his way, sometimes with thorny pricks, which have caused him to say, “Ouch.” Usually, he just said, “Ahhhh.” Dragonfli (she spelled it with an ‘i’) was fond of flowers, especially roses, as was Duck, Turtle, Cricket, Swan, Chickadee, Loon, Chipmunk, Bambi, and all the others. Frog knew of roses, but never talked with any of them, let alone composed a letter to the rosiest Rose of them all.
See, for so many years, Frog sat on a Lily Pad in Kentucky contemplating sunrises, sunsets, birth, rebirth, and death. His job was to teach, which was silly, because he was the one always learning. He’d simply throw his whacky questions out to the Great Whatever and all the pond creatures would arrive with their responses. Bufu, for example, with her bunny tendencies, Crow with his African pride, Worm with his slimy self-deprecation, and Swallowtail with his mischief, kept Frog leaping towards finding answers.
R andom. He knows. the way
o vertures and symphonies
s ing soliloquies & possibilities,
e xistential sensibilities, and
B alance simplistic complexities with
r andom, complex simplicities.
o bscuris vera involven - such truths, obscure, are actually the
c ure, but only when written and shared in a
k aleidoscope of pink & blue. See, hope has always been you.
Frog knew, however, that he never shared such thoughts with the nation like writerly critters do. Instead, he just scribbled his thoughts in notebooks.
But sitting outside a canteen in Texas with a Pelican, two teaching friends, and a writer, Frog shared a story of a young man, Sunfish, who pierced his belly button during a trip to St. Augustine, Florida. Sunfish tap-danced with Skittles, feather boas, and bubbles since he was a little boy, so a belly button ring seemed perfect to culminate 13 years of K-12 schooling. The problem was that he took aspirin because it hurt, and it started to bleed…and bleed…and bleed…and bleed. Frog had to act fast and took him to the ER, which turned out to be an overnight affair. Sunfish, like many young’ ens from his housing project, didn’t have insurance, so Frog had to put everything under his name. Frog imagined schools had insurance for field trips and he would get reimbursed for the $1,400 hospital charge (Frog’s credit was good, he told the listeners, who, by the way were drinking tequila and feeling good, too). Frog’s school district, however, said they didn’t cover such a thing, so Frog chalked it up to a good deed of doing what it is right, to help a kid from poverty who happened to almost bleed to death because of his belly button. Sunfish graduated and moved on to seas bigger than the pond and Frog kept teaching whatever creatures came his way, and forgot about the $1,400. That is, until several years later when Sunfish showed up at his door with $1,400 and said, “I’ve owed you this for a long, long time.”
Frog thought he was Gene Wilder for a moment and recited, “So shines a good deed in a weary world.” Sunfish won. He brought good into the world (which is really God with an extra ‘o”). Frog spelled backwards is Gorf.
At this Texas canteen with Pelican, two teaching friends, and a writer, Frog could have told the story of Squid, Starfish, and Possum, too, and their unlikely friendship. See, Squid and Starfish started dating after Frog shared with Possum the story of the Boy and the Starfish. And Squid and Possum were best friends. The story, where the boy throws the Starfish to sea, has always been one of Frog’s favorite. Alas, Frog left the pond in order to save himself (hence the Ph.D), and he left many creatures behind. There were still many yet to be named.
It was years later, however, when Frog learned that Possum, the boy who arrived to the Pond after being hospitalized for depression, loved the Starfish story so much that he created a pond of his own and took Frog’s place. Possum learned that Starfish’s mother suffered from depression like him. Frog taught Starfish’s older sisters, Goldfish and Phoenix, when their mother committed suicide and they lost their house to a fire (two nights in a row, back to back). Starfish was in 1st grade then, and grew up to be a beautiful woman. Instead of a goldfish or a phoenix, however, she tattooed a starfish across her shoulder. The pond mattered. It always mattered. We are who we are because of who we are together.
And Frog learned this from Squid, who stopped dating Starfish, sadly, after high school. Squid opened a book store and became a writer (he was meant to ink the page - hence, his name). Squid also reported Frog’s leaving Kentucky was very difficult for Possum, but Possum chose to fight his sadness and to look for other starfish in need of sea. In fact, as a counselor now, Possum does just that. He wrote to Frog, “Ubuntu.” Some creatures just get it.
But this Frog has never written a flower before, let alone a Rose. Words should bloom and make the world a better, more hopeful place. Like a rose. No wonder the flower is synonymous with love.
Even Eagle, who (of all the pond creatures in the world) found a way to become Frog’s youngest son helps him to see this. There’s nothing greater than watching that lil’ guy soar like his brothers.
Ribbit Ribbit. That’s what you, Rose, mean to us. Hope. 💚
