From the Mail Bag: M.M. wrote, I experienced your search for Kiera as very single-minded and focused–bordering on obsessive (and definitely annoying to me). It seemed to me that you were too caught up in “looking for something to fill a need (for Kiera) rather than for someone to help.”
Dear M.M.: I can see why you’d view my search for Kiera that way, but let me anthropomorphize for a minute to better illustrate how I experienced it. Let’s say you had a child leave home for parts unknown (Kiera’s death) and you thought you’d never see that child again. Then, one day, that child calls you up on the phone (in this case, as you know, the call is the dream) and she says she really wants to come home because that’s where she belongs–she needs to be with you. And she’s made this incredible journey to get back to you, but she can’t get back all the way without your help. Now she really needs you to go find her, because she has no way of getting to you on her own. But the kicker is, if you don’t find her within a few weeks (because after that time she will have been taken by someone else, somewhere else), she’ll be lost to you forever.
So, yes, absolutely, that creates an intense sense of urgency.
But let’s not give your view short shrift. I won’t deny that I wanted to get Kiera back as much as she needed to get back to me. I think it’s a very normal human reaction to want to find a way to be with those you love, and to express a need to be with those you love. I don’t see that as unhealthy. I’d be more inclined to view someone as unhealthy who denied that they had any needs and were only here to serve others. Like Buddha, I believe in the middle way; balance is the key.
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