Creative essays

The following are personal essays that I have written in response to family research, national tragedies and other sources of inspiration.

Readers Write: Family treasures from the past are gifts of love for this generation

I am the keeper of the bins — all 10 of them. Rather than a burden adding to the closet’s clutter, today I see them as a gift.

I began lifting the dusty lids and rifling through each one in search of something I remembered seeing when last I ventured into my family history for a story. I know there are old Valentine cards, or love notes in one of the many scrapbooks, or in the countless envelopes and boxes within boxes. I just can’t find them. Every time I go through the bins I find something I haven’t seen before, and miss the things that I wanted to see again.

In looking for symbolic Victorian expressions of Valentine’s Day love - a cleverly worded card, or a quaintly cheesy ‘roses are red’ poem I had come across before - I found instead in the whole of this collection, expressions of love in all its forms spanning several generations.

My father’s branch of the family tree contains the serious memorabilia buffs. They wrote notes on certain items for those who would come after them, identifying people in photos, requesting a certain item be kept for posterity. It has been seen as a bit self-absorbed in our modern family lore. What I have isn’t even all of what was saved. My father sorted through piles of history in my grandparent’s basement and only kept what he felt was most relevant to the family going forward.

My great-grandmother, L. Ethel Heine, died when I was very young. I knew her only as an imposing older woman...

A different call to arms

The violence in Newtown’s Sandy Hook school was unimaginable, causing grief around the world with its swift and shocking destruction focused on hurting the very young and those who cared for them. “Why?” and “How?” were on everyone’s lips. The only possible answer I saw was the intent to strike pain in the hearts of all to equal that in the one who pulled the trigger, and to shock us out of our complacency.

What possible lesson can we realize through the horror, despair and tears? 

Each day thousands of children die in this country and around the world due to a slower, quieter destruction. Poverty, violence, hunger and illness cut short many young lives needlessly and often without comment.

Perhaps the best way to honor those lost in Newtown is to protect, nurture and raise up those beautiful children who are still among us, and mourn those who die unseen every day.

Hold every child as closely as you do your own. Support policy, law and social efforts that will improve the lives of children and the adults they will become. Remove the barriers and stigma associated with seeking care for mental illness.

Fight back with the fierceness of resolve demonstrated by the caregivers who fought to save so many lives that day, and those who lost their own in the effort.

This is a call to arms: used not to bear weapons, but to gather up all the little children in the warmth and support of a community that cares.