Booper, Harry and Me - Her Messenger
Harry tells her own stories. Harry’s voice flows through my fingers. I am not her and she is not me; somehow, she was born somewhere in a mind and heart much greater than mine. I just serve as her “messenger” to the world so she can express her undaunted spirit, boundless love, and fierce righteousness.
Is she my “alter ego,” that is, as it’s usually called, an alternative personality? No, far from it. She is as real to me as a guiding spirit can be. As you’ll find in her stories, she is definitely no angel!
She’s giving me a hard time as I write this: “Yeah, I may not be an angel, but I certainly got you off your duff and got you moving.”
She’s right about that! I had been floundering for some time. I had been looking for a deeper sense of purpose that would best serve my small portion of the world and make me happy to leap out of bed in the morning.
Harry and her stories do that every day. It’s a joy to be alive and be her channel for all of the amazing good she can do with her stories. She and I agree on that!
A few years ago, she introduced herself to me just as you think she would have. I kept hearing this loud banging in my head, like someone desperate to get out of a closet. I opened the “door” and there was Harry; she appeared just as you see her in your own mind.
“It’s about time you paid attention. I’ve got stories to tell and animals and people to save, so let’s get to work!” she snapped at me.
Triumph
Over Tragedy!
She strode through that mental door and seemed to move right past me toward my desk and my laptop. She plopped her soccer shorts on the edge of my desk, slowly swung her legs back and forth, flipped her long auburn hair over her shoulders, leaned on her hands, stared at me with her blue eyes, and said, “Sit down and write what I tell you.”
Shocked! I stared at the image in my head. I said, “Sure, let’s do it.” So I sat down at my desk and began to write her adventures just as she told them to me.
What about Booper, her 100 pounds of “gentle warrior”? He sprang into Harry’s story at a critical time. Like far too many young adults, she was tittering on the edge of either falling into deep depression, becoming a criminal, using serious drugs, or becoming the good person she hoped lived, but feared did not live, in her heart.
Her irresistible yearning for a dog—and Booper’s desperate plight—were a gift that saved Harry’s boundless love and fierce energy so she could use it for good in the world.
Since the moment I opened my mental door, Harry and I have shared the same mission: to help young people—and we hope their parents—triumph over tragedy. That is the lesson Harry came to life to offer to the world.
My name is Robert L. Perry. I am grateful to be Harry’s “messenger” for her stories about her often turbulent life and her quest to do what is right and good.
Harry and I hope you enjoy her adventures. We hope you take from them how you, too, can choose joy over sorrow and triumph over tragedy!