Backwards and Forewords.

Backwards and Forewords (from The Sun and the Moon)

By now, I know better than to judge a book by its cover, but I often wish that people came with forewords. A letter or introduction from a close friend, a family member, a coworker, or even their mailman to serve as a precursor before we become even vague acquaintances would be beneficial.
Imagine a world where all of us had forewords…
No one would roll their eyes at the woman who is afraid of airplanes because we would know her father died in a plane crash when she was nine years old.
We would all understand that the cranky old man who gets upset about his coffee is really devastated because his wife is dying of lung cancer and he feels like he’s losing his reason to wake up in the morning.
Instead of gossiping about the girl who gets drunk at parties and sleeps around, we would wrap our arms around her and whisper in her ear that she is worth so much more than sex.
But we don’t come with forewords. We are jumbled up chapters, with the tear-stained, dog-eared pages we re-read to torture ourselves. We’re backwards, presenting our stories in reverse; we’re here now, but no one has any clue where we’ve come from.
I haven’t read your foreword.
And you haven’t read mine.
But I promise I’ll remember that you have one.
Can you do the same for me?