Two years ago today, I wrote this short poem about Corrie on my Facebook page:
Forever was never a guarantee.
Promises were made, and when
the sands shift, we can say what
we meant when promises were
said. Forever was never a given,
a lifetime went undefined. What
I thought I wanted, I received, and
what I believed was mine was
never truly my own. “Always” exists
in a place beyond this, and for always
I love you. Keep the part of my
heart you took with you safe,
and you will be my always.
I posted with a memory of Hayes, my son, and Corrie from 2017.
Today, I feel sentimental. Perhaps it’s because my health hasn’t been the best this week. Perhaps it’s because I think I’ve lived 70 years instead of 37. Maybe it’s because I fear, fight, and pray in raising a preteen son, in the aftermath of sudden death in childhood of his sister and John’s cancer, diagnosed with autism and ADHD, and his being so tightly defined.
Or maybe it’s simply because I miss my little girl.
I don’t stop writing poems about both children.
I write just as much about my son as I do Corrie. He had years of poems and stories on Corrie, and I wrote “Your Sun will Rise Again” for him after Corrie graduated to heaven.
Son,
your sun will rise again.
Perhaps not in the way of
a boy in a legend who hurries
to battle and swings his sword,
or a hero in another
galaxy where they fight for
justice with laser beams.
Excerpt from “When We Danced in the Rain,” a poetry collection by Rebecca T. Dickinson
In January 2020, I began writing a YA novel, Rise of the Rinsed. Corrie would sit in my lap in John’s blue chair, and ask me to read.
When she earned her wings, I stopped writing the novel for several months. I swore I’d never pick up again, but one day, I started writing in it again because Corrie loved the novel so much.
Yesterday, I found out my novel, Rise of the Rinsed, was a finalist in novel excerpt competition for a second time in the last ten months after also being a semi-finalist in October 2021.
With that and two poems published this year, I share a small excerpt from Chapter 26 of Rise of the Rinsed. I’ve never shared an excerpt from this novel … ever:
“In fact, many of her brothers and sisters, with the exception of Teo, are named after plants. Her full name Dedalera in the common language means foxglove. Her mother had longed to grow foxgloves on the farm, but often the climate on the family farm was too hot during the spring, summer, and early autumn months. She’d found one place full of shade where she’d grown her Dedaleras. ‘If you gave me the biggest diamond ring,’ her mother had once said, ‘it would never be as beautiful as a field of foxgloves.’ So, instead of rings, her brothers and father brought flowers home to their mother every other day. She’d place vases of flowers at the spots on the table where Lera’s sisters, mostly older and out of the house, had sat.”
I’ve been very protective of this piece of work for many reasons, but this week, I also decided if an excerpt of the entire novel is ever published,
Excerpt from Chapter 26 of “rISE OF THE rinsed” by R.a. bRIDGES
(Just a note, I decided this week that if an excerpt or the entire novel is every published, to change my author name on this work to R.A. Bridges instead of Rebecca T. Dickinson or R.T. Dickinson. Those are my established pen names. I decided this week to change it in honor of my family. The A comes from Corrie’s two middle names, Aurelia-Ann.)
Copyright R.T. Dickinson January 2020
Corrie's Season 