Anne with an “E”: A Tribute to L. M. Montgomery

The first time I met Anne, it was on the front of a soft cover book that my mom handed to me on my last day of the third grade. I was captivated by the young girl staring back at me from the moment that book entered my possession; the fiery red hair, the startling grey eyes, and the idyllic green and white shingled house that framed her portrait. That summer I fell in love with Anne, in a way I have never loved a storybook character before or since. I was obsessed with Anne’s imaginative world; everything seemed so beautiful and perfect through the eyes of this young girl who quickly became just as alive to me as the “haunted forest” and “lovers lane” were to her in the novel. I laughed at her antics and adventures, I cried at her sorrows and failures and I believed, just as surely as if I was living at Green Gables myself, that indeed, magic was real, and so was Anne. You can imagine my delight when I learned that Anne’s story did not end after Green Gables, and that there were seven more novels through which I could grow up with my dear friend, Anne with an ‘e’.

As the years went by, I kept Anne very close to my heart. She inspired me to write, to read, to recite poetry and novels, and to see the world through a colourful lens of hope and beauty. I believed for a long time that no one could love Anne like I did, and that only to me was she truly alive. Years later, I finally got to visit the Island where Anne lived, and it was there that I learned that I wasn’t alone in having Anne as a muse, and a friend.

As I walked up the Green Gables steps in Cavendish, Prince Edward Island, I was almost certain that Anne herself would come running down the worn wooden stairs with a crown of summer flowers in her auburn hair. However, as I walked over the threshold into Green Gables, a black and white image of an unknown woman stared back at me from the picture frames that lined the walls. This woman, who I saw as in intruder to Anne’s sacred home, was of course none other than Lucy Maud Montgomery herself, and this was her home, the place where she had written Anne into existence. Where I thought I would walk through the house like an old friend, I suddenly felt out of place, as if I was in the wrong Green Gables. As I studied her portrait on the wall, I thought it was impossible that this black and white creature could create the vibrant, colourful and impossibly beautiful person that was Anne.

I wandered through the house like a ghost, and although I recognized the familiar hallways and rooms where Anne had lived, they suddenly all became someone else’s, this unknown L.M. Montgomery's. Finally, I made my way up to Anne's East Gable room, the sacred space where I had wept tears of joy and sadness with Anne for years. This room, of course, was Lucy’s, and although I wished to walk in with deep resentment towards this female stranger, I felt something quite different. As I walked over to her writing desk that looked out onto the friendly willow trees outside, a picture framed quote from the author herself caught my eye. Despite my attempt to ignore it, I couldn’t help but give in to the temptation of reading these framed words from the past. It read:

When I am asked if Anne herself is a “real person” I always answer “no” with an odd reluctance and an uncomfortable feeling of not telling the truth. For she is and always has been, from the moment I first thought of her, so real to me that I feel I am doing violence to something when I deny her an existence anywhere save Dreamland. Does she not stand at my elbow even now — if I turned my head quickly should I not see her — with her eager, starry eyes and her long braids of red hair and her little pointed chin? To tell that haunting elf that she is not real, because, forsooth, I never met her in the flesh! No, I cannot do it! She is so real that, although I’ve never met her, I feel quite sure I shall do so some day — perhaps on a stroll through Lover’s Lane in the twilight — or in the moonlit Birch Path — I shall lift my eyes and find her, child or maiden, by my side. And I shall not be in the least surprised because I have always known she was somewhere.

As I finished reading and focused back into reality, the first thing I noticed were the tears rolling down my cheeks, and secondly, I became aware of the other visitors staring in confusion at my weeping figure. But I wasn’t weeping in sadness, I was crying tears of joy. Because suddenly, I realized that although I had loved Anne, this whole time I also loved the invisible artist who brought her to life; the voice who was speaking out to me from the worn and loved pages. I loved with the writing style that had so inspired my own, the message of survival in the face of adversity which had given me hope in some of the darkest moments of my life, and the imagined world that had been my escape and refugee for so many long years. And although I had wanted Anne all to myself for so long, as I cried in that East Gable room on a summer evening, I realized that what I really wanted was to know that she was real, and in discovering Lucy, I knew she was. I walked out of Green Gables that day with two friends by my side instead of just one; Anne who would always be my companion and muse, and also Lucy (yes, we are on a first name basis), who for all this time has been my role model and guide as I navigated my own life and journey as a writer.

In the words of Anne herself, which I now know are Lucy’s too, “True friends are always together in spirit”. I do not need Anne all to myself anymore, because I know that she is always with me. Lucy gave me Anne, and now, I take the liberty of giving her to you, I am sure Lucy wouldn’t mind. May she comfort you in affliction, and celebrate with you in your victories, big or small. And do not doubt for a second her existence, for I believe, like Lucy, that Anne is is more then a person, she represents seeing the beauty and good in each person, and placing our trust in a God who is perfect goodness and love itself.