I Wrote a Letter

I often thought about my former boss, Mr. Logie, as I was writing A Rose for Sergei.  He is the one who introduced me to Sergei Kourdakov.  How could I have lost track of him?  There were times when I was writing that I would abruptly stop and initiate a search on Google.  I had a feeling that I needed to find Mr. Logie, but every avenue turned out to be just another dead end.  It bothers me that I let thirty-six years just slip away without any contact.

The last I heard was that my boss had returned to his homeland of New Zealand.  I had pretty much given up any hope of finding him.  I decided to try to locate his oldest son, his namesake.  I knew that if someone was writing a book, and mentioned my father, that I would want to know about it . . . especially since I had recently lost my own father.  My last Internet search finally paid off.  I found his son!  Now what?  I wasn’t quite sure how to go about making contact or how it would be received.  And so I decided on the old-fashioned way.  I wrote a letter.

Within twenty-four hours of mailing that letter I received an e-mail from Kirk, Jr.  How was that even possible?  I shouldn’t have worried about how my letter was going to be received; Kirk Jr.’s response was warm and kind-hearted.  Yes, he remembered Sergei.  Yes, he remembered meeting me when he was just a teenager.  And yes, his father still speaks about me even after all these years.  From the e-mail we progressed to several phone calls that day.  His exuberance reminded me so much of his father.  He caught me up on all the family news, and best of all, his father was doing well and still lived in the area.

Kirk Jr. told me that Sergei had lived in their home for several weeks when Sergei first came to Washington DC.  As we talked about my forthcoming book he couldn’t help but tease me about how his younger sister Lee Anne would take it.  “You know, Lee Anne was only seven at the time, but she had a huge crush on Sergei.”  I was touched to hear that and I definitely understood how that could happen.

Later that week I talked with Kirk Sr. on the phone, and all those years suddenly melted away.  It was so wonderful to hear his voice—his New Zealand accent still so familiar.  He told me that he was really glad I was writing a book about Sergei.  He still has fond memories of Sergei, which are just as sharp as ever.  I knew he was like a father to Sergei, they were very close.  Right before our conversation ended, with my promise to visit him soon, he too told me about Lee Anne’s crush on Sergei.

Wow, I wondered.  Mr. Logie is ninety-three years old and he still remembers Lee Anne’s crush on Sergei!  And her older brother remembers that too!  This had to be an amazing story.

I met with Lee Anne the following week and heard about “the crush.”  I promise to write in my blog next week about that seven-year-old girl and her beautiful story.  It will truly touch your heart.