There is no more important unfinished business I have at this year’s end than to share what you are about to read. A letter from the sister of an unknown soulmate begins the story.
On June 1, 2018, as I was sitting at my husband’s bedside after his failed surgery for a cancer that would take his life, Beth Cowden, a reader from Rancho Palos Verdes was writing me a letter.
Expressively handwritten in ink on personalized stationary, her letter told me that her sister, writer Melody Ortenburger Suppes, who had been an enthusiastic fan of this column, had passed away a few days earlier. Melody, her sister wrote, had lived and worked in Manhattan writing commercials for several of the large advertising agencies. She felt an affinity for my writing because I often mentioned many places in New York that were familiar to her.
How I wish we could have met — two young women who moved to the big city to write. I think we would have been friends, perhaps visiting some of the same New York landmarks I wrote about. Her real dream was to be a script writer and after moving to Los Angeles — another thing we had in common — she often worked as a script doctor in addition to writing screenplays and novels.
Beth said that Melody had planned to write me a letter telling me how much she enjoyed my work. So she wrote to me to honor her sister’s wishes and sent me a copy of Melody’s final book, “Banana Bubblegum,” a witty and delightful detective story that takes place in Torrance and Lomita.
The letter and book traveled a circuitous route to me, first arriving at the Daily Breeze newspaper offices and then sent to my home where it disappeared in my office bookcase with all the mail that arrived while I was staying at the hospital with George. Although it has taken five years for us to reunite, Melody feels strangely familiar and comfortable to me, like we have known each other for a long time. Thanks to her loving sister for bringing us together.
Email patriciabunin@sbcglobal.net. Follow her on X @patriciabunin and at patriciabunin.com.
