A SUSAN STORY
by Judith Arnold
The April Tree’s dedication reads: “For Susan.”
Although Susan and I grew up just a few blocks apart, our town’s school districting assigned us to different schools until fifth grade, when a new school opened and we were both transferred there. That first day of fifth grade, we found each other and bonded like epoxy. We were inseparable.
Susan was a gentle soul. Her voice was soft and lilting, her giggle infectious. She was smart and talented. We both loved to write, and we spent hours upon hours penning short stories about adolescent girls, which we planned to publish in an anthology called Trouble, Trouble, Trouble. Susan was as athletically inept as I was. She loved the Beatles as much as I did. She was amazingly kind.
She was also dying.
In those days, a diagnosis of leukemia was a death sentence. Susan’s parents decided not to tell Susan she had a disease that would kill her; they wanted her to enjoy as normal a life as possible for as long as she could. They asked my parents not to tell me, because if I knew, I would tell Susan. She and I had no secrets. We shared everything.
So Susan and I were told only that she had a blood infection which required regular doctor visits. At the time, I was receiving allergy shots, and I saw
Our sixth grade class photo. Susan and I are both in the second row. Susan is the second from the left, in the red sweater and blue skirt. I’m the second from the right, in the plaid jumper and white blouse.
my doctor about as often as she saw hers. Sometimes she wore a back brace for support, but my father also wore a back brace due to a spinal injury, so I thought nothing of Susan’s brace.
Susan died the summer after sixth grade. A complete shock, her death hurled me into an emotional abyss. Today, I would have been sent to a therapist and dosed with antidepressants, but again, those were different times. I was left to cope with my sorrow on my own.
Because I was a writer, I coped by writing. I wrote wrenching, anguished prose-poems. Bitter, raging diatribes. Bleak, existential parables. Cynical stories bristling with distrust and hostility.
Eventually, I started writing romance novels. I loved creating stories in which I could control the endings in a way I couldn’t control real life. Every now and then, I’d attempt another kind of story—a Susan story—but none of those attempts was worth preserving.
A few years ago, I decided to try again, and I wound up writing The April Tree. I created three heroines who lose their best friend, April. Each of those heroines reflects a part of me. Becky is rational, determined to make sense of an incomprehensible universe yet taking comfort in quirky rituals. Like Becky, I think logically while clinging to my own superstitious rituals. Elyse draws portraits which always contain a bit of April in them, just as all my books contain a bit of Susan. Florie wants simple answers to complex questions. Unlike her, I usually can’t accept those simple answers, but I yearn for them as strongly as she does.
Having written nearly ninety romance novels, I knew The April Tree needed something more, something real life often fails to provide: a hopeful ending. So I created a fourth character, Mark, who plunges into despair after April’s death, just as I did after Susan’s death. Mark needs saving, and April’s friends set out to save him. They believe they can overcome the pain of April’s death by redeeming someone else’s life.
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At the end of The April Tree, new grass sprouts in a place where Becky hadn’t expected anything to grow. One thing I learned from Susan is that while loss and grief may scar us, we can still celebrate life, finding joy in the soft, sweet green of new grass. Another thing I learned from Susan is that no one is ever really gone as long as her memory lives on in those who love her. Susan still lives in my heart and in my books—especially in The April Tree.
This month only, THE APRIL TREE by USA Today bestselling author Judith Arnold is only $1.99!
