"He has been back for three days, three days-- and I have not known-- he has not come to me. I counted each moment he was gone, and I spent the seven days my mind had generously alotted for his leave-taking in carefully-contained composure, bearing the pain and the endless amount of questions. It is too much-- it is too much to ask to treat me this way and go-- but I bore the seven days, and at the end of them I was on pins and needles with torment, absolutely certain that he too must be feeling this uncertainty even to the smallest degree-- and at the very least-- at least would have seen me, would have regarded me. See, he is in the next room-- look, these exchanges we have had-- this semblance of friendship. It is dust. My mind is rattled. I am mistaken-- I hallucinate-- I pretended friendship where it is not. I have arrayed myself beautifully, and what a parade of stupid nonsense I am."
Reading this Women of Influence book is causing me to remember another of my great childhood loves -- "The Miracle Worker," the story of Anne Sullivan and Helen Keller. It was Anne Sullivan I really loved, and still love -- it always made me heartsick to think of her sacrifice, devoting every waking minute to another human being, with almost no life left to herself, until she died in old age, and Helen Keller required another translator. But God -- she must have known it -- that's the best way to live -- it is to have every moment of your life swallowed in supreme goodness and satisfaction. No wonder I loved her, and no longer do I feel sorry for her -- I envy her. I thought of her today perhaps because when I was around eight or nine I grew aware that she and I shared the same initials "AS." Today is the first day that I am Amanda Monteleone at work, and I have written my initials "AM" dozens of times already. It's strange, but the satisfaction of...