windinthemaples

Last night, Shaun surprised me with a copy of The Deathday Letter. Like, a real copy with the barcode and everything--three weeks before it is released. Once I started reading, I couldn't stop. I'd read the first draft and a couple retooled drafts, but this was the polished, published result of so much work and coffee and divine inspiration. And it was the product of the creativity and heart and humor of my best friend. So obviously, I think it is a great book on its own merits, but that isn't entirely what has me weepy and nostalgic this morning.

I love this boy more than it is possible for me to love anyone else. The gutter jokes and the packages of cookies and the late-night drives with the windows down and music blaring on his radio formed a large part of my personality. All that formed a safe place for me to stay me. I survived my teenage years thanks to his unswerving friendship. The book has moments that seem to be lifted wholesale from our time together, from our past and from our conversations and from just our annoying-each-other friendship. Maybe most of that is because so much of Shaun-at-15 is encapsulated in his main character, Ollie.

The book has dozens of bizarre, creative, grossly-funny codewords for "masturbation" and yeah, is one penis joke after another, but it also has this heart, this surprisingly mature heart where Ollie stands in perfectly imperfect moments, grasps some sort of meaning-of-life most of us never manage, and through it all you see glimpses of who he'd have grown into if it wasn't his Deathday. I can't help but see Ollie-as-Shaun and think those glimpses were really into who Shaun has become in his adulthood. I couldn't be prouder, Shaun.

I love you. You rock.

Carpe (morte)diem!