Dear The Man Upstairs

Dear the Man Upstairs

Maytal Booth

new degree press

copyright © 2021 Maytal Booth

All rights reserved.

Dear the Man Upstairs

ISBN

978-1-63730-317-7 Paperback

978-1-63730-318-4 Kindle Ebook

978-1-63730-319-1 Digital Ebook

This book is dedicated to Naomi Booth. It’s been a crazy twenty years, and I couldn’t have made it this far without you.

Contents

Author’s Note

Part I

EGG

Miss W

Move Around

Kind Thoughts Will Go a Long Way

Miss W (with an extra tooth not in her mouth)

Time for Life to Bloom

Miss W, the Ballerina and Bee-to-Be

Best of Luck

A Girl Amy Babysits and Hopefully Doesn’t Hate Too Much

Miss W, the Principal Dancer

A Girl Who Is Not and Will Never Be a Bee

Part II

LARVA

A Girl Who Got Sent Home UNFAIRLY

No Sadness Lasts Forever

Miss W, a Girl Who Is Almost Ten

Anthophila’s Big Sister, Miss W

A Big Sister

Hard Things and Wonderful Things

Part III

PUPA

A Girl with the Flu

Miss W, a Girl Who Is NOT in Love

Spring Blossom

Someone Who Is Good Enough

A Girl with a Wish

Weather the Storm

Miss W, the Best Older Sister Known to Man, a Girl Worried about Her Grandmother

Miss W, the Fifth-Grade Superhero

A Girl Having a Hard Time with Today

Part IV

QUEEN

A Crying Miss W

A Girl Hoping for a Miracle, Miss W

Miss W and the Man of God

How Humans Grow

Miss W, a Worried and Relieved Fifth Grader

Miss W, the Granddaughter of the Bride

Miss W, a Girl with a Date to the Dance

The Earth Through Your Eyes

Miss W, the Older Sister of a Six-Month-Old Baby

Your Granddaughter

Dear the Man Upstairs

Acknowledgments

Author’s Note

Dear Readers,

When I first started writing Dear the Man Upstairs, I did not know it would become a book. I was sitting in a creative writing class, sixteen years old, drafting a single narrative letter because that was what my teacher had told me to do.

I thought about who my classmates would choose as the recipients of their letters. I thought maybe they would write to a classmate, a lover (always a lover when you’re a teenager), a friend, maybe an enemy. I, like every sixteen-year-old, wanted to be different. I wanted to be totally outlandish and yet safely secured away from ridiculous.

So I thought to myself, Who is the most out-there person someone could write a letter to? Who will no one else think to have as their recipient?

The answer came in a startling epiphany—God.

I grew up in a religious Jewish household. My father is a Rabbi, and my mother is an educator of Judaism. God and related questions are often at the forefront of my mind, which is why I thought of a divine power so quickly as a recipient for my letter.

Once I had who was being written to, I needed to find out who was writing. As a child, I struggled with the many euphemisms for God. It was inconceivable to me that one being had so many names.

So, in one way to be a bit funny, and in another way to make the work not explicitly religious, I decided that the writer of the letter was a child. She addressed the letter to the Man Upstairs, unaware of what exactly the name represented. It was just someone she’d heard her grandmother talk about a lot.

The letter started to take form then. She’s a fourth grader (a grade I remember clearly), a bit different (she gets scared of loud noises easily, like I did back in the day), and she’s so unapologetically vibrant the people around her sometimes need to shield their eyes.

She’s curious in that first letter, asking questions to a stranger and hoping someone can make order of her chaotic world. When I shared it in class, my seatmate said, You have to write more.

So, I kept writing and writing. I thought about what people often consider to be an ideal child: an extroverted, athletic, intelligent, empathetic, disciplined, and obedient angel. (No one really has children like this.)

My main character, in her own ways, has these attributes. She’s friendly, bright, and loves the people in her life. She is athletic, and she has discipline when it suits her. She also has a hard time sitting still, dealing with things that are uncomfortable for her, and understanding social norms. She sees a psychologist to help her develop strategies for a challenging world. She is hard to be around sometimes. Even if she is not what many people would consider an ideal child, she is still happy and healthy.

After I wrote a few letters, someone wrote my main character back.

The genre of this epistolary novel is young adult, but truthfully, I believe it has broad appeal to anyone in a family. Mothers, daughters, fathers, grandfathers, and especially grandmothers will see themselves in some of the characters. Growing up, my family read each other books like the Penderwicks and Nuclear Family, both of which influenced my writing style for this novel.

I grew up with heartwarming books forming the backbone of many night cuddle-sessions and Friday afternoon family times. It felt very natural to write my own read-aloud friendly novel. It’s practically my tradition.

My main character’s family is in some ways modeled off of my own, and in some ways she is very different from me. She is Christian, a religion I do not practice. My mother, however, converted to Judaism from Christianity. Jewish households are wonderful places, but they can be loud and abrasive. Private hurts become public accusations in a matter of minutes.

Members of my mother’s side of the family, by contrast, are a lot more careful in how they express discomfort. There’s a culture of keeping things to yourself and rarely voicing (explicitly) the source of contention. Her family is far better than my father’s at the art of passive aggression.

This dynamic is integral to my main character’s family life. Her grandmother and mother do not get along in the slightest. The mother and daughter-in-law pair talk to each other almost exclusively in hidden barbs and pointed criticisms. My main character, being the socially oblivious individual she is, misses the tenseness of these interactions and only understands something is wrong during obvious fights.

This book is a coming-of-age novel, but it is not only about my main character growing up. It is a story about a family growing apart and together and wiser and melancholy. It is about expectations and how breaking them can sometimes be frustrating and beautiful in equal measure.

Dear the Man Upstairs will always carry a piece of me, sixteen years old and writing in a humid classroom full of sweaty teens. I didn’t know from the first letter, or even the fifth, that I was writing a book. Sometimes it still surprises me that these letters became a complete novel.

This has been the journey of a lifetime. Thank you, dear readers, for coming on it with me.

Yours,

Maytal Booth

PART I

EGG

Dear the Man Upstairs,

Who are you, and is the Man Upstairs even your real name? That’s a nickname, right? I bet your real name is John, David, Kevin, or something. I know a lot of Johns. My grandma and you must be really good friends because she talks about you a lot, and she doesn’t really talk about anyone because she doesn’t like most people and gossiping is bad. Do you talk about her a lot? Does she talk about me a lot? Do you also not have a lot of friends? I have two and a half. I’m writing to you because I think we should be friends. I don’t have any friends who are adults, and I think adults probably need friends as much as kids need them.

I asked my grandma once why it rained, and she said it rains whenever you want it to or when you are crying. I think you’ve been crying a lot lately, because the sky has so many clouds, the trees keep dripping water, and the puddles are getting bigger. Are you okay? I hope you’re not too sad.

Maybe you just really like the way rain looks. I don’t. If you really do control rain, could you make it stop? I do like rainbows. You can’t get rainbows without rain. Wait, would you be able to do that? You totally should. That would be so cool.

Mommy says I get distracted too easily, so I might get off topic sometimes, and I’m sorry. I asked her why I can’t focus like the other kids, and why I get scared at the sound of people on the second floor above my classroom and then need to hide under my desk even though my friends (well, not my friends yet, but people who might be friends if I try a little harder) will laugh, and she said it’s because you have a plan. Do you have a plan? I feel like my life is a little unfair because my teacher, Mrs. N, is always mad at me for running around and getting off topic. I would really like to know why I am the way I am. Daddy says what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger, but all I have are bruises on the fronts of my knees from falling out of the tree in the schoolyard.

Why are bruises blue and black? I asked my mommy, and she said to bother someone else, so then I asked my grandma, and she was reading but she said because you said so, but somehow I think there’s a better answer. Anyways, we haven’t met yet, but Grandma Jen says I need to trust you. This is confusing because Mommy always tells me not to trust strangers, which you are. Grandma Jen tells me Mommy is overprotective and distant and so I should not listen to her.

Please write me back, Man Upstairs. What does it even mean, upstairs? We’re on the top floor of our apartment building, and people can’t go on to the roof. At least, I can’t. Do you live on the roof? That would be super weird and a little dangerous. Be careful and please write back to me. I really want a pen pal.

Sincerely,

Miss W (Mommy says that it’s bad to tell strangers your full name, so I’m only giving you the first letter of my last name.)

Dear the Man Upstairs,

You haven’t yet responded to my first letter. Do you have any paper or pencils? Just in case you don’t, I’ll put some pencils in the envelope with this letter. I hate mechanical pencils, so I hope you don’t mind regular yellow ones. Maybe you won’t need any pencils, anyway, because you’ve probably already written me back, and it’s just that the mail is taking forever because of all the storms. Are you okay? You’re not crying too much, are you? Mommy and I cry all the time, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen Grandma Jen or Daddy cry.

Grandma Jen says you’re called the Man Upstairs because you live in the sky. Does that mean that somewhere there’s a staircase that goes all the way into the clouds? Can you tell me where it is? Actually, maybe you shouldn’t tell me because I might get lost trying to find it. I get lost a lot, and sometimes it’s just in the grocery store. The other day, Mommy brought me to help her buy some things for dinner. I needed to use the restroom except I accidentally went to the storeroom, and there were all these cardboard boxes, and I couldn’t find my way out.

The store had to go into lockdown because everyone thought maybe someone had taken me when Mommy couldn’t find me. I could hear people looking for me on the intercom, but I wasn’t sure where to go. I think I went the wrong direction because I ended up by a wall, and then an employee found me and had to tell everyone I was okay on the intercom. And Mommy was really mad at me when I found her again. So maybe don’t tell me about where the staircase is because I could end up on the wrong side of the sky, and I don’t think clouds have intercoms.

The staircase you live above must be really long. I don’t think I could walk up that many flights of stairs. I get out of breath walking up the six flights of stairs to our apartment when the power’s out like it was yesterday.

Do you walk up the super huge flight of stairs every day, or do you just stay in the sky most of the time? I think I would stay in the sky if I could because then I’d never have to go to the doctor’s. I have to go tomorrow because my teacher, Mrs. N (we call her Mrs. N because her full last name is NyQuil-aloe-vera-phobia or something), said I should go to a doctor for some testing. My mommy was really upset at her and yelled for a long time, and then I was taken outside by Mrs. Casey, the yard teacher, and the principal came and talked with Mommy while I got to use the swing set. And now I have an appointment with someone named Dr. Keaty.

I don’t think that the doctor will learn anything about me. I’m just a normal girl who does normal girl things. It’s not like I’m sick or anything. I don’t want to get tested because I hate tests, but I like doctors. Daddy’s a doctor, but he works at the county clinic, and he’s trying to move into something called development at a for-profit institution so he can finally make some gosh darn money with the degree. That means he’s trying to be the person who asks the government or rich people for money, I think. He doesn’t like being a doctor at the clinic very much.

Please write back to me.

Sincerely,

Miss W

Dear the Man Upstairs,

I checked all our mail yesterday, and there was nothing addressed to me except one letter, but Mommy took it from me before I could open it. I think it was your letter to me, and even though Mommy didn’t let me read it, thanks for writing! It looked like it was typed, which makes sense because I wouldn’t want to use yellow pencils if I could avoid them even though I was the one who sent you them. I don’t know if it’s because the school bus is yellow or Mommy’s yucky vitamins are yellow or Grandma Jen’s stupid bag is yellow, but I think yellow is an ugly color.

I asked Mommy for green pencils, but she said they don’t exist. Well, Mommy once said aliens didn’t exist, but Mrs. N told me today that Mars had (or maybe still has) water and maybe even tiny little aliens smaller than my eyes or maybe smaller than my eyes can see. I’m not really sure. The point is that things Mommy says don’t exist sometimes do exist, and I’m going to find green pencils someday. Probably pretty soon, too, because Grandma Jen says that Mommy doesn’t get me green pencils because she’s lazy and not because they don’t exist.

I asked Mommy about the letter, and I think she lied to me. She said it was just my test results from the other day when we went to see Dr. Keaty.

I don’t like tests very much because sometimes (most times) I have a hard time sitting still until the end, and Mrs. N gets a little upset with me for being distracting. Like this one time, we were doing a math test, and I was really bored, so I started drumming the Imperial March from Star Wars because I had watched it the night before with Daddy, even though Mommy says that TV will rot my brain. I was just drumming it on the desk, but then I started getting really into it, and I began humming it. So I’m at my desk going, bum bum bum and so on for the whole first part of the melody. Then I get to the refrain, and I just start belting out the song, and then Mrs. N told me, Stop it right now. You’re distracting the other students.

So then I just drummed the song on my desk for about fifteen seconds, and then Mrs. N sent me outside of the classroom. Tests and I are not friends.

This test wasn’t so bad, though. Mommy and I drove to the office, and we went down a hallway with purple walls and green polka dots. The lady behind the counter talked to me like I was a baby. When I said I liked the green polka dots because I have green eyes and me and the decoration matched, she said in this high-pitched cooing voice, You do match! and offered me a sugar-free purple lollipop. I did not like the way the lady behind the desk was talking to me because I am nine and not a toddler, but I do like lollipops. I went to take the lollipop, but Mommy pushed my hand down and said I didn’t need any candy, so I didn’t end up getting to eat it after all.

Then we went back into Dr. Keaty’s room, which had Doctor Keaty written on a board on the front of the door. I think it would be cool if one day I have an office with my name on the front. When we went inside, there was this kind of tan couch and then a large desk. Dr. Keaty had dark skin and dark hair in a bun, and she had these deep brown eyes that looked like they were staring straight into my soul and judging me.

The doctor asked me some questions. They were all not scary at all and a bunch easier than the real tests I have to do at school on spelling and fast multiplication.

Do you get up from your seat a lot at school? she asked.

Yes, I answered. I have to get up to go to the bathroom or to take a break from working sometimes or to find whatever I dropped or to see what’s outside the window. Everyone gets out of their seat sometimes.

Do you have trouble playing quietly?

No, I said. It’s just sometimes I have to remember to use my inside voice.

Do you have trouble wearing jeans?

That one was a good one because yes, I do. Jeans have the seam that just itches for no reason, and I can’t stand them even if Mommy always says I would look so darling in them instead of the pajama pants I choose to wear. Daddy gets mad at her sometimes when she tries to make me wear scratchy dresses and pinching shoes. Sometimes I have to wear fancy dresses, anyway, and then I’ll pull on their tags until they rip, and Mommy gets mad at me, but then I get to change.

Anyway, Dr. Keaty asked a few more questions like those, and then she gave me some cars to play with and talked to Mommy. And Mommy said that the letter she wouldn’t let me see was the results but all I did was answer questions, so I don’t know what the doctor could have found. Mommy said we’d have to go in again, though, and that I had to start seeing Dr. Keaty twice a week. Talking with Dr. Keaty isn’t so bad, but I don’t think the two of us are going to be friends, not like you and me might be friends one day. She’s very professional and never talks about herself. I don’t think I’ve ever had an adult talk to me about me for so long ever before. I’ve talked to Dr. Keaty three times now. In our first time together, she suggested to Mommy that it might be good to prescribe me some medications, but Mommy said, No.

Dr. Keaty said that was fine, and now we just talk to each other. I can’t tell if I like her or not.

But enough about me. How are you? Mommy says I talk about myself too much. She says I need to start letting people talk about themselves a little, otherwise just hearing me talk will be boring. I asked her, What is it like being old? after she told me this, but she got angry. Since she always