by Jessie Kraemer
Dear Letter Recipient,
I apologize for my salutation, for I do not know your name or your title. Be assured this letter is intended for you and after reading it through, you will know why you have received it. But first, a story.
There once was a woman, a young girl actually, whose name I also did not know. I knew her secrets before I knew her name. When she was 17 she kissed her first boy. Since she was worried that she was already too old, it wasn’t the boy she had wanted to kiss. Her best friend, Jules, threw up after lunch every day and she didn’t know what to do about it. She and Jules kissed one time, too. It felt amazing but they never talked about it again. She loved trees, especially trees in unusual places, but thought she was supposed to study to be a doctor because that is what her father wanted her to do. One of her biggest fears was that she would grow up to be a disappointment to her parents. She didn’t sleep well and sometimes went days without feeling hungry. The state of the world made her wonder if anything mattered at all. She felt lost but she was not afraid. I came to know, too late, that this was the last secret of hers I would ever read.
Aurora Williamson
May 6, 1993 – November 9, 2012
WE LIVE TO LOVE YOU MORE EACH DAY
You see, I learned her name from her tombstone. During her funeral, I stood off a little distance, pretending to tend to another grave. You see, I am one of the groundskeepers at the cemetery. Looking over, I guessed which girl was Jules because she was frightfully thin and the one who lingered after others left. Aurora’s mother seemed almost broken, only moving at the direction of a man who guided her through the ceremonial motions. He didn’t cry at all but in the way he tensed his shoulders I sensed his deep pain. Later, when I could visit her grave alone, my heart ached as I read the epitaph, wishing that she had known how much she was loved.
Even I, who she had never met, was a little in love with Aurora – her wispy handwriting, the way she walked so carefully across the cemetery, begging pardon if she had to step on top of someone’s grave, her beautiful searching eyes. Aurora was a regular visitor to the cemetery, passing through most days. She walked in all different directions and across all the grounds. No matter where I was working I would see her. I knew her by her purple jacket and heedful steps. One day she almost caught me.
You see, I have a secret of my own. Years ago, as part of a collaboration between an arts’ collective and the cemetery, an artist conceived of an interactive piece for the cemetery, “Here Lie Our Secrets.” The title is inscribed as an epitaph on a gravestone. Where a name would go is a thin mail slot. The gravestone appears to be solid marble but in its design is a secret. It is in fact a cement box, hollow inside to capture the letters of visitors. About 18 inches from the edge is a key hole, which when turned opens up the latch that lets you lift up the headstone and pull the letters from within. No one, until you now, reading this letter, knew I had a key.
Only the artist was supposed to have the key and she does a public ceremonial burning of the letters each year. The date changes but it is always on the Spring Equinox. The very premise of the art is that visitors’ secrets are supposed to stay in the grave. That’s why I didn’t want to get caught.
So that day, when Aurora’s purple jacket appeared in my peripheral view, I thought I had been exposed for sneaking the letters into my refuse bag, amongst the leaves. Looking closer, I realized her eyes had been cast down as she gingerly calculated her path, avoiding walking over the bodies below. Almost immediately, I realized the opportunity. Since I had just emptied the box, if she dropped a letter in I could open it right away to see her secret, fresh and alive unlike the others which sometimes tortured me in their anonymity.
I took my leaf/secret bag a few rows down and began raking. She opened her bookbag, looked around furtively, pulled the sealed envelope out, folded it, kissed it on both sides and slid it into the grave. She stayed a bit, reading a book from her bag, before walking attentively through the grass to the gate. After I watched her leave the cemetery grounds completely, I returned, re-opened the grave and found her solitary secret. From then on, I looked for her signature two-kiss-mark seal – those faint marks, a telltale that gave away each of her secrets as hers.
For years I read. Sometimes I cried as it felt like her pain seeped from the ink on the page into my heart. Sometimes I smiled because there is a flip side to many secrets: desire. I treasured each letter but beyond the letters I came to adore her. Whenever I saw that flash of purple, my day was better and my heart was lighter. I didn’t enough consider what life felt like to her. I wonder if she ever saw the way she affected others or just felt lost and alone. I just wish I had done something after I read her last secret. I didn’t hear the cry for help.
I think of Aurora often as I do what I now consider to be my real job: Secret Bearer; Miracle Maker; sometimes, Wish Granter. Most people that drop their secrets in the slot come only once. They may be travelers. They may come in a group because one of them read about the project online. I imagine those promptly forget about it after the experience is done. Their secrets aren’t heavy because they write them when they are happy and connected to friends. Others may feel relieved, unburdened and have no need to return. After reading these sorts of secrets, I return them to the grave. They have been received to be burned, to vanish in the yearly convening. But there are some secrets that belong to people that come again and again, people that are from this community, and those that I just simply come to think of as the ones I am meant to protect.
I have my ways of finding out who they are: sometimes I follow them; sometimes they make it easy and sign their names; sometimes, I recognize them; other times, I find a way to introduce myself. My aim is to intervene in their life in just the right way, to relieve their pain, ease their burden, deliver a message, illuminate a way through, or to simply help them see they still have purpose.
My own mother died when I was in high school. A few days before her death, she confessed to me that she did not believe in God. She professed in love, “Love is all there is.” The next day she instructed, getting into the finer details of the things she wanted me to know, “The secret to it all is that people – yes, you son – can answer other people’s prayers.” For years, I wondered what she meant by this. It was only over time that I came to read the secrets as prayers.
When I first found the key to the secrets, I didn’t see them as prayers at all. They were contraband. I was sneaky but I couldn’t stop. They fascinated me. They thrilled me. They made me curious and confused. Sometimes they made me laugh, a few caused me to gasp but with time I saw they mostly followed a pattern. People think they alone are terrible, miserable, afflicted.
They are just human.
It wasn’t until Aurora was gone that I began to read people’s secrets like prayers. Now, I see if I can answer them. Over the years I have become more intentional in my efforts to match people’s secrets to their identity. For each one I identify, I seek to see how I can help.
These are just a few ideas from my service. In my spare time I decorate rocks with inspiring quotes, and then leave them in places I know the confessors will pass. In all the nearby neighborhood establishments I know my visitors frequent, you can find my motivational graffiti on bathroom walls. If someone shares that they can’t afford what their family needs, I pull from my savings and leave them an envelope of cash signed, “a random act of kindness…do something kind for someone else some day.” Not all acts of kindness are monetary. Sometimes knowing a person needs to feel beautiful is just enough to know what to say to lift their spirits. Words are powerful and free. Being generous with words is something anyone can do. When someone seems to be having suicidal thoughts I have a roll of hotline stickers I place strategically around. Even more effective is when I find a way to offer them a chance to help someone else in need. There are plenty of those around and I admit I have gotten pretty good about drawing attention to myself by presenting a sorrow they cannot help but tend to. Helping others gets people out of their own struggles.
My answering prayers toolkit has grown over the years. Yours will, too.
Still I think back often to Aurora, wonder what she would be doing now, and get that twist in my gut and stone in my chest. For years now, memories of her have served as my resolve to continue.
Which brings me to your secret and the way I am answering your prayer. I see that you most need to know that you are not alone. This work teaches you that day in and day out. My work will continue with you. You are a seeker, curious about the world around, willing to take a path unknown, always open to a recommendation, and capable of being the next Secret Bearer. Miracle Maker. Wish Granter. Call yourself by a name of your own making. Along with my secret, I include here the key. Do with it what you will.
Gratefully,
Believer
Leonardo Magazine 