Letter (pgs 1- 28)

Dear Professor E.M. Ashford,

I find that my present location will surprise you to no end. At this very moment, I am seated in the waiting room of a Dr. Kelekian, who at his best is a benighted fellow with a lacking bedside manner. Even I, a thoroughly disconnected individual, could better deliver a difficult collection of bad news. And what is this bad news you ask?

Well Professor, it appears that I have advanced ovarian cancer. Dr. Kelekian told me, in some uncertain words, that my only hope is to undergo chemotherapy. A young man who used to be a student of mine, Dr. Jason Posner, collected information on my medical history. This ailment appears to be almost unstoppable, and I have been forced to face the fact that I do not have much time left. I have never felt quite so vulnerable before in my life.

My entire career, I have hidden behind wit and complex prose in the hope of building up defenses to the rest of the world. Every time I have corrected someone's grammar or questioned their word choice, it was in an effort to separate myself from the self-absorbed problems of a routine life. Somewhere, in my attempts to remove myself from frivolous difficulties, I have forgotten what it means to experience the world around me.

I feel that a part of my subconscious has come to the realization that I do not know much about the world, but I plan to educate myself on it. Now that I am faced with a shortened frame of time, I have to dissemble the walls of literature and education that I have so carefully built around myself. Not to say that literature is unimportant. Forgive me Professor. I merely mean that it is time that I form a human relationship besides ours of written correspondence. I had always thought that the education that I received from you concerning Donne's Holy Sonnets would be the most valuable I ever obtained, but I am growing more and more doubtful of that. As important as Donne and his writing is to me, perhaps there is something more out there.

I hope to keep you informed on my findings.


Sincerely,
Vivian Bearing

Edson, Margaret. W;t. Boston: 1999. Print.