Grace Linton — Your Life Is A Manual Part 1
“Release the manual girl!” A voice to her right urged. “I swear I will be arrested for murder soon if that child continues to disobey me!”
Shirl Tomlinson enjoyed the feast her three friends were paying for at Un Bel Endroit a.k.a French for a Beautiful Place, a few miles from their home.
Gina, Shana, and Lenore ordered salads, eating slowly as Shirl enjoyed her meal of Lobster Thermidor.
Half an hour later, Shana paid and tipped the waitress, and they enjoy Orange Tourteau Fromager a.k.a French Orange cheesecake.
Shirl notified, “I know why you brought me here.”
“Damn,” slid from Lenore thoughts as they all eyed Shirl.
“I am not going to be a mother/ therapist/psychiatrists/judge to any of your children anymore,” Shirl throws at them.
“You wolf down our expensive food and now refused to help us!” Shana protests.
“Please!” Gina begged. “You know motherhood doesn’t come with an instruction manual. Or else we wouldn’t be bothering you.”
“Yea!” the others agreed.
“Because you did such a great job with your kids, all we need is your help,” Lenore begs.
“Why don’t you use your own damn parenting manuals?” Shirl demands
“Parenting and motherhood doesn’t comes with a manual,” Lenore said.
“Who told you that motherhood doesn’t comes with an instruction manual?” Shirl asked, glaring back at them.
“We forget that she is nuts!” Shana said, turning to Gina and Lenore.
“Insane or not, our children listen to her, more than they listen to us,” Gina reminds.
Shirl handed them three tickets, then grabbed her bag off the back of her chair and said, “be there. Grace Linton will show you where the manuals for life, motherhood, parenting and everything else are,” nodding she walked away. Turned a few feet away and said, “I used my parenting manual to raise my kids and helped you raised yours. While you sit on yours.”
Two days later Shirl sat in the second row of the middle aisle in the Livingston Ballroom of the Gateway Hotel in New York City.
Grace Linton appeared on stage in a pastel yellow pants suit, black low-heeled pumps cushioning her feet comfortably. Her eyes scanned the audience and she said, “I got a letter from someone telling me that there are manuals for life, living, parenting, motherhood, honesty, common sense and all of the things in life that most humans have issues dealing . . . . .”
“I know who sent you that!” shot from Gina’s mouth before she could finish.
“Yeah,” Lenore and Shana agreed, eyeing Shirl between them.
“Can I buy a copy of your parenting manual?” someone in the audience asked.
“Me too,” another voice said. “I want the motherhood and commonsense one too.”
“I want them all,” many other voices said.
“Is it on Amazon or Draft2Digital?” others asked.
Someone handed Shirl a microphone and Grace asked as she took it, then stood. “You wrote me that letter?”
“Yes,” Shirl admits.
“Release the manual girl,” A voice to her right urged. “I swear I will be arrested for murder soon if that child continues to disobey me!”
“Me too,” many others agreed.
Shirl smiled, then revealed, “my life, living, childhood, motherhood and everything I do is a manual for you,” she points from her to everyone.
Silence reigns, waiting as brains, minds, souls, and thoughts struggle to comprehend.”
Shirl elaborates, “how your mother and father raised you. Is a manual. How your grandmother, grandfather aunt, uncle, sister, brother, god-mother, friends, foes, the people we look up to, etc., raised their children and lived their lives are manuals.”
“Damn she is right!” Many voices in the audience agreed.
Grace escorted Shirl on stage, and she continued, “Gina and Shana, my two best friends became mothers at seventeen years old. The same for their mothers. Now, I have to be helping them to raise their daughters because they aren’t aware that their lives and the lives of their mothers and past generations are manuals.”
“Oh, God!” slid from Shana’s brains.
“Dammit she is right!” Gina exclaimed. “The mess our mothers made of their lives is a manual and both of us didn’t read the instructions.”
“And end up repeating their mistakes!” Shana slid back into the past, overwhelmed by tears.
A voice nearby said, “our past generation are manuals too.”
“And are packed with things we should learn from and not repeat!” Another voice notified.
“Now, this is a damn good reason to go back into the past. Manuals for a better life and living are there,” some adds.
“And can save our lives and children lives too,” a regretful voice shared.
Your life, living, actions, choices, and decisions are a manual to someone — Annelise Lords
https://medium.com/@thisisanneliselords/list/grace-linton-ad0f722291e0
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