Sunday, November 25, 2018

What Tristan Means To Me

What Tristan Means To Me - A Katrina Tale
Tristan
Every week I tell myself that I need to come and write and every week, it gets pushed to the side. Not today though. Today, I need to write. I need to tell you things, even if nobody is listening. I just need to.

Most of you will have no idea who the character to the left is. His name is Tristan and he's the lead character in a series of comic books that I've been blessed enough to work on over the past few years. His main job is to protect his boy from the monsters under the bed. Nobody really knows just how much being able to work on his books means to me, not even his creator, Nick Davis.

Today, while his current project is stuck in Kickstarter limbo, I need to tell that story...not because I'm hoping it will push people to go and fund it, though if it does, I will be grateful for each and every penny, but because it's time. I need to share this piece of my life with you.

You see, most would see my childhood as typical. Sure, I was raised by my grandparents, but that's not terribly unusual. It happens. From the outside, everything looked great and it was, as long as you never looked at the time that I spent with my mother.

Times at my mother's were like that book that opens, "It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.". You never quite knew which one it was going to be. It could be a grand time of playing games and hanging out or it could be one of the nights when her and her friends would smoke pot and wake you up to come out and entertain them. It could be gardening in the backyard or being screamed at, cursed at, and told that she wishes you had never been born. You just never knew. The only thing I did know was that my teddy bear was always there for me. He'd soak up my tears and he never complained about how tightly I held him. Not even once. He was my stability in a very rocky world.

Fast forward a lot of years, a lot of traumas, a lot of changes, and the one thing that never changed was that some sort of teddy bear has always been there for me. It's still a constant in my life. The collection has expanded and sometimes who has caught those tears has changed, but when I'm alone, on the worst of days, there's one by my side to remind me that I'm not alone and that I'm not fighting alone.

Somehow, I found Nick in the chaos that is the internet and we became friends. I reviewed his early books for Life With Katie and then, I think, for Geek-o-Rama. Then, a few years ago, he started letting me edit/proofread on his books and it was a bit like finding home. I felt as if I fit. Nick not only let me play in his universe, but he gave me a chance when there weren't a lot of chances coming my way. I will be forever grateful for that. He believed in me when I didn't believe in myself.

He let me work on a series of books that were all about protecting children, about giving them a safe space, and about watching over them. This touched a part of me that I thought I'd buried. Now, that same series is at risk of not being funded and that's breaking my heart a bit. I've realized that I need to see this project funded not just because it's an amazing book with amazing talent, but because I need for other children to see that they aren't alone in whatever it may be that they're battling. This project is personal to me and I don't think that people realize just how much.

For two weeks, I've been on social media asking for pledges and asking for people to share it and I don't feel as if I've been all that successful. People don't see my name as the project runner and don't bother to read the page to see that I'm editing this book if it gets funded. If it doesn't, I don't get this job. I don't get to hang out with Tristan and Wilma as they fight off the no-names and children, perhaps children who really need to see this story, won't have it available to them.

This project means so much to me that I've pledged to it myself. I've pledged more than I will ever be paid for it, but that doesn't matter to me. It matters far more to me that this project get made and that this book be made. If I could, I'd back the entire thing myself and then donate the rewards to the local children's hospital that my oldest has spent time at. Heck, if people wanted to back, but didn't want the rewards, I'd have them tell Nick to have them sent to me and I would still do that. For now though, all I can do is continue sharing this project on social media and to try to keep hope alive as each day ticks by.

For those of you who have taken the time to read this, thank you for letting me share my story with you. I've found that sharing can lead to healing and each post here is a tiny step towards that.



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