It's 5 am in Omaha

My sister, Kathie, just left to catch her 6 am flight back to Sacramento, and although I should be sleeping (or at least trying to), my mind is just too full to allow for that at the moment. I keep remembering all the little details I've gleaned about Emily's life and home that I haven't written down yet--like the depth of the well that James Gillespie dug (60 feet, but the water is at 40 feet), or that when Wilbur bought the house, there were no stairs leading up to the second floor bedrooms (Emily's son, Henry, had decided they weren't straight, and tore them out to redo them, but never quite got around to it. There had apparently been a ladder in their place for about 10 years or so). Or that when I sent a picture of the main street through Manchester to my husband, he asked if there was an old-fashioned ice cream parlor nearby--because the place looked just like Disney's Main Street USA (It does!), or that the population is about 5200 ("give or take," according to Wilbur).

These are just a few of the thoughts that are keeping me awake right now. But, I guess it's the memory of a walk I took yesterday morning down N. Franklin Street in Manchester about 10:45 am that is most on my mind at the moment; I had wanted to pay one more visit to Emily's grave before we left the area. My time there the day before with Wilbur had been full of trying to figure out who was who among all the Gillespie relatives, wondering when (and by who) all the headstones had been purchased because they all looked the same age and design (we decided on Sarah, Emily's daughter, since she was the last Gillespie to die), and discussing how many of the people mentioned in the diary might be buried in this cemetery. It had been an enjoyable visit, but didn't really allow time for introspection--or the conversation that I wanted to have with Emily.

So, I told my sister over breakfast that we needed to go back to Manchester before we could leave; I needed to talk to Emily. We drove the 23 miles due east down Hwy. 20 (before we headed west toward Omaha), and at 10:45 am I left the air-conditioned car to brave the 2 block walk through humidity that had returned with a vengeance after an overnight rain. I crossed the lawn, past the locked gate across the cemetery driveway (the gardener was mowing the lawn, so I'm guessing they kept the gates locked until he was finished) into an entirely empty cemetery. The mosquitoes were thick so I didn't stay too long, but I did have a thing or two I needed to say to Em and her daughter before I could go home to finish writing my book.

Standing in front of her headstone, I told Emily that I'd do my best to tell her story in a way that she would be pleased with, to make sure that another generation would remember her--to make her proud. I assured Sarah that all her efforts to preserve her mother's diary wouldn't go to waste. And finally, I leaned down and picked up a small and fragrant branch that had fallen from the tree that shaded the Gillespie graves, placed it on Em's headstone, and asked her to be my audience as I wrote. (I also asked her to please be a cooperative subject; I was going to need all the help I could get!)

I walked back up the street just a few moments later, with at least 5 new mosquito bites and a sense that I was now really ready to write. Emily may not be the central character of my book project, but she and her diary are certainly its heart-- and that heart is beating pretty enthusiastically right now, right along with my own.

My flight doesn't leave until 4 pm, but I have a feeling I won't be going back to sleep for awhile. If you'll excuse me, though, I think I have some writing to do...