What I Wrote and Why: A Christmas Visit

Candy_Kane54

Missing my Muse...
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In 'A Christmas Visit,' I wrote about a hypothetical visitation by Bonnie to Virginia the night before Christmas. Bonnie had died earlier that year from pancreatic cancer, ending their seven-year relationship. Virginia was trying desperately to adjust to all of the changes in her life and accept that the woman she loved was taken from her.

I'd written several stories around these two characters and other related characters, and I wanted to tie some of them together to explain why Virginia was able to move on and find someone else to love. In 'No More Perfect Kisses,' I told the story of how Virginia's struggle with her sexuality and the early demise of her parents, her father when she was 14 when he was killed in a railroad accident and her mother seven years later, who had never accepted the loss of her husband. These struggles led to her losing her religion and turning away from the Catholic Church because God wasn't answering her prayers anymore.

In 'Your Silver Night and Golden Days,' I told how Virginia found Bonnie and fell in love with her, entering into a relationship with her even though she was an officer in the USAF. Bonnie was a single mother with two boys who Virginia came to love as her own. When Bonnie got sick and was dying, Virginia finally turned back to the Church, trying to cope with everything that was going on, willing to give God another chance and start a conversation with him.

The circumstances around Bonnie's death led to Virginia getting outed as a lesbian. Knowing that her Air Force career was over, despite being groomed for a fast track to General, Virginia resigned her commission to move back to California to care for the boys that Bonnie had entrusted to her care. On Bonnie's deathbed, she had made Virginia promise her to find someone else to love. Virginia did so, but she wasn't sure how she could possibly find someone else to love.

In 'Tomorrow is Promised," I told the story of how Virginia, fearful that finding someone else to love would make her forget about Bonnie, felt lost, not wanting to stop loving Bonnie but needing to fulfill the promise she had made to her. This conflict drove her back to the Church, and she found comfort in the fact that God was talking to her again. Due to that, she started looking for someone to love and soon found a possible candidate.

In addition to those stories, I had written a series of stories around Bonnie's mother, Grace, and her relationship with Kathy, a relationship that began when they were in high school, first as friends and then burgeoning into love, despite how gay relationships were forbidden, and even illegal in 1948. In 'Receiving Grace,' I told how the relationship survived over the years. One such event, a road trip in 1965, was used to develop the story of their relationship. What allowed Grace to participate in the road trip was that her daughter, Bonnie, would spend a week at summer camp.

I wanted to tie these two story series together, so in 'A Christmas Visit,' Bonnie related to Virginia the events leading up to her attending summer camp and what she did there. When she returned home, her mother met her, having spent the week on the road trip with Kathy. That was when Bonnie realized that her mother was a person, too, and had her own life to live, and wasn't just a mother.

Bonnie's visitation then came to an end. When Virginia woke on Christmas morning, she thought it had been only a dream. However, she discovered evidence that it could have been real, especially once she talked to Grace and discovered that what Bonnie had told her about going to summer camp in 1965 had happened. This realization allowed Virginia to accept that she could find someone else to love without fearing that she'd forget about Bonnie.
 
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