Moroni Saw Me Entry Two

Hectic. That is what life is. All of us could say that about our lives at some point I gather is the truth. After listening to Jay tell me that I should write my book (and agreeing with him), I should let my readers know my origin racially, I set out with visions of fame in my head.

See, that was my first error. Oh, the potential was there and still is for me to be well-known and even famous.  That was not to be the reason for the coming forth of Moroni Saw me.  The book did not start off with the name Moroni Saw Me. It did not start off with any inkling that I would lose a family member, my child.

It started off with me wanting to let the world know that I am Black and I am also LDS. Look at what I went through. My purpose was to write all those White people in Utah, who also happen to be Mormon, and let them know how little old Black me faired in the LDS culture. It was pathetic, to say the least. I, however, needed to start somewhere.

I had no plans to use my daughter's death as a path to fame. It was too crippling to endure the reality of it, but it was a defining moment of my life. After talking to Jay, my counselor, about the possibility of turning my memoir into a therapeutic tool to deal with  Zipporah, my little angel's tragic death, I decided to put it at the tail end of the book. Yeah, I was just going to sum up my already written book with a chapter about "oh yeah, my daughter died."!

It did not work. I could not fit it in. Thank God I had the sense to change the book to be more of what it is now than to publish what I had. Once I put the story about what happened to my baby in the book, it turned into my therapy on dealing with grief. Oh, it was still a memoir, to speak. I focused it on how God helped me deal with all the grief in my life through the ministrations of many good people--culminating with the Restored Gospel being the one real saving grace. And it was.

Moroni Saw me Entry One

The process is not completed yet, but journeying back in time to a time and place where the book germinated in my brain compels the telling of the journey of another few works I had published. I fumbled through the idea of a few books with no real success because I did not know what I was doing and did not have the confidence to do it.

I wrote two books Border Arizona: What's My Name? and Life: Memory Piece. Those books have their own unique stories which I may reveal at some time. However, the fact that these books hardly garnered any attention troubled me. I felt that they were strokes of inspiration, but no one seemed to be interested in them. A friend of mine from church told me that if I wrote about myself, the person who I am, it may gain some tractions. Because I am Black and a Latter-day Saint, he mentioned that I might intrigue a few people.

He was actually my counselor, who I consider a friend. His name is Jay. I told him my trouble in getting any interest in my books.

"What are your books about," he asked.

"Well, my first book is ..." I responded relating to him the details in a chaotic attempt to provide a synopsis.

"What makes the books interesting is you," he said after considering the long explanations I provided about my books. "The fact that you are a Black author who is LDS is rare. How many do you know?" At the time, I knew of no one that was purely an author.

"If they know you are Black," he continued, "Especially the people in Utah, White Saints would be interested to read what you write about--how you view the world and interpret the gospel to your heritage."

I was resistant to do so.

I have a list of reasons why not to write about myself.

1. I am not famous. 
2. I have accomplished no great thing. I do believe I am worth something, but I have done nothing of note in my life that would appeal to a broad public.
3. I am not what I consider a success story--more of a struggling-to-get-by story. 
4. There is no inspiration in how my life is currently in my estimation. 
5. It, the writing about being Black and Mormon, has already been accomplished by scores of other people--people with professional pedigrees to match!

What do I have?  

I have hope. I have a story to be told and it does not matter if I am a best seller or

not. It does not matter if I can tell it well or not for that matter, though I am confident I did tell it well. I can tell it. My motivation now is to tell my story and be honest with myself that not very many people may read it or even like it. I like it, though. Since my daughter passed away I have felt a need to write that has come from God.

The need to write, the feeling that God wants me to, and my daughter's death fueled my drive to produce Moroni Saw Me: Life & Thoughts of a Saint.