Pam Parker's Blog, page 5

Dear World, We’re Sorry

Dear Rest of the World,(Except Syria, and you are forgiven, Nicaragua for your reasons),

We hope you know of Brenda Lee’s song, “I’m Sorry”, from decades ago. If not, there’s a link at the end to listen to it. We’ve changed the words to express our regrets of our president’s announcement today of intentions to withdraw from the Paris Accord and join Syria (seriously?) as a non-member of your esteemed group. Please accept our apology, with apologies to Brenda Lee and her songwriters.

We’re sorry, so sorry

that Trump was such a fool.

We didn’t know

He could be so cruel.

They tell us

Mistakes are part of being dumb

but that don’t right

the wrong that he’s done.

We’re sorry, so sorry

Please accept our apology

But he is crazed

And we’re stuck with him you see.

They tell us

Mistakes are part of being dumb

But that don’t right

the wrong that he’s done.

Oh, oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh yeah.

We’re sorry, so sorry

Please accept our apology

But he is crazed

And we’re stuck with him you see.

We’re sorry, so sorry

Please accept our apology

But some were blind and we were too blind to see.

https://medium.com/media/c50ea3390760a25606a803348d5831aa/href

We will do our best, the rest of us who believe in science, to do our part to undo the damage he is trying to do.

With love and sincere regrets,

Many Citizens of the United States of America

Enjoyed this piece? If you did, hope you’ll click the ❤ in the left hand column under share. Those little hearts help other readers find Pam Writes. Thanks!!

Dear World, We’re Sorry was originally published in Pam Writes on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Fighting Fear

Travel in a Time of Terror

I’ve been fortunate to see a fair amount of our world — mostly western Europe and the United States so far. And, my traveling has generally happened in peacetime in the places I’ve been. There was a noteable exception when we lived in Marburg, Germany during the tense time before and during the first Gulf War. Western European cities and towns were full of people protesting the conflict and the protests had a decidedly anti-American tone. We went to Paris for the weekend when attacks began and there was a strong military presence at places that screamed “American.” I had to go into a McDonald’s (in Paris, ugh, I know!) to find something my three year old would eat, and I was greeted by the presence of armed gendarmes inside. Security was tight at the Louvre. This was all very unusual in 1991, but, given the war, not unexpected.

I’ve never travelled for work or military service — I’ve travelled for leisure, for learning (writing conferences), for pleasure, to see and know more about other cultures, other lands, other people. Travel to me is a chance to build bridges. The only thing I hope to see get blown up is my own ignorance.

In addition to the westernized places I’ve seen, I’ve been to Israel twice, and hope to return one day soon. The first time my feet touched Israeli soil was in 2000— before 9/11. The presence of armed police at the airport, on the streets, an armed guard accompanying our tour group when we were heading to a park for a hike, our bus stopped by a police officer so an unaccompanied backpack left outside a hotel could be picked up by a robotic thing which “swallowed” the bag — those sites were shocking and disturbing to me and the other Americans in my group. (Some members of our group had grown up in Israel and they were far less surprised, obviously.)

A day after the attack in Manchester, England at the end of the Ariana Grande concert, my husband and I were on our way from Llandudno in northern Wales to Manchester. Our time in Wales had been a delightful time of unwinding, of castle-hopping and discovering the joys of poached eggs on crumpets. The weather was not the expected dreary grey skies with cool sprinkles, instead, we had this:

Conwy Castle, Wales

I hadn’t packed any sunscreen or enough warm-weather clothes — such problems. :-) We hiked along the Welsh coastal path, walked from Llandudno to Conwy and happily spent most of our time outside sans rain coats, an unexpected treat in Britain! But world news came across the web and we learned of the attack in Manchester.

Tweens at a Concert

Like caring people everywhere, our hearts broke at the thought of those young girls, their parents and friends. The next day, I nearly cried when I heard a Three Dog Night song playing, “Just an Old-fashioned Love Song.”

You’ll swear you’ve heard it before
As it slowly rambles on and on
No need in bringing ’em back
’Cause they’ve never really gone

I had been a tween or just barely a teenager when I went to that concert — my first. My big sister took me and my cousin and we loved it. I remember our excitement, my fascination with the lights, the noise, the ability to see and sing along with the band! Here’s a Youtube clip of them singing that song at a concert a few years later.

https://medium.com/media/6575271e8ce5e25460879af1b16cbe63/href

Never once did I worry about being blown up. Not once.

I hate it that girls will have to fight that thought from now on.

At Piccadilly Station in Manchester (not far from the concert venue), armed police were very visible. That had not been my experience previously in Great Britain. This sign at Piccadilly was ironic, given the targets of the attack:

I hadn’t felt afraid heading to Manchester, certain security would be strong; even so, I wasn’t interested in wandering far from our hotel — a combination of fatigue and caution. We knew the search was still active for people involved in the killing. When a police siren screamed nearby, as often happens in any city, I wasn’t the only one to stop and look around. When my husband and I went to a pub to watch the Manchester United vs Ajax football (soccer to Americans) game, we were surprised that the place wasn’t packed. We scored a great seat. During the opening, the Manchester players looked so subdued and serious. Who wouldn’t in their shoes? What a relief to see a smile or two on the accompanying children’s faces.

Something good needed to happen for Manchester and they won the Europa League final held in Stockholm. The crowd in our pub cheered, sang and enjoyed, but many, like us, hurried home from wherever they’d watched it. The crowds on the sidewalk were smiling this time, and somehow, despite the news, that gave hope.

From Manchester, we traveled by train the next day to Glasgow, Scotland — seeing armed police at both ends of the journey and sharing, with the rest of Britain, a moment of silence on our train at 11 a.m. in honor of the victims in Manchester.

George’s Square in Glasgow is in the central city. We lived not far from there two years ago and learned it was a popular place for protests, meetings and marking memorials. We weren’t surprised to find memorials out for Manchester.

The full length of the front of the monument is filled with memorial bouquets, messages and stuffed animals.

I know there are people who are afraid to travel in these times. I am afraid not to travel. Maybe that will change for me, but it hasn’t yet. If I get to the point where fear rules my life, I hope I will be able to get beyond that.

Cancer survivors understand something different about fear than perhaps others do. We know that fear welled up in us long before our diagnosis and prevented us from acting with courage in certain situations. The clear idea of death makes you focus on where you’ve let fear hold you back. For me, fear had kept me from submitting and sharing my writing. Fear of rejection had silenced me. Cancer, my wake-up call, led me to a braver, better life.

I am not about to let terrorist actions pull me back into the land of fear and silence. If I want to go to a concert, I’ll go to a concert. If I want to travel somewhere, I’ll go. But more than anything, I hope parents of young girls will find a way to strengthen them, to help them battle their fears and move forward. Not in a risky, thoughtless way — clearly we all need to be aware and cautious — but with confidence that the good side is doing their damndest for all of us. It’s a sad truth that they don’t get to never think about the possibility of being blown up anymore. That sucks, but like nonstop news and a bazillion channels on t.v., it can’t be undone. Still, they don’t have to dwell on the possibility of terrorism either. Music will still play. Let them see, hear and sing along. Let them rise above terror and experience life. Don’t lock them away. Don’t let fear win.

Enjoyed this piece? If you did, hope you’ll click the ❤ in the left hand column under share. Those little hearts help other readers find Pam Writes. Thanks!!

Fighting Fear was originally published in Pam Writes on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

PamSpeaks Too

Though I’m admittedly most comfortable sharing my stories, ideas and thoughts through writing, I have grown more comfortable in recent years with public speaking. People who knew me as a child are probably fascinated with the transformation in me over time. I was a painfully shy little girl. Even in college, I avoided majoring in French, which I loved, because the only job I could envision with it was teaching and back then, even the thought of regularly being in front of a classroom was perhaps-not terrifying, but downright disconcerting.

How did I change? Practice. Gaining confidence. Believing in my own voice and abilities.

It was a process. I said yes to requests even if they made me uncomfortable and began to realize, I could speak as well as write.

The last few days have seen an unusual confluence of PamWrites out there, and yes, PamSpeaks too. I was able to read another essay which aired on our local Wisconsin Public Radio affiliate. It’s a Mother’s Day post with an awful title which I regret. I wished I’d titled it, “The Greatest Gift My Mother (and Her Mother & Grandmother) Gave Me.” It’s about 4 and half minutes, so if you have time, I hope you enjoy it. (A few of you may remember this from a PamWrites post a few years ago — this version is slightly modified — and, you get to hear my voice, if interested. :-) ) Thanks to my Auntie Judy for the picture. And, much gratitude to Mitch Teich at Lake Effect!

Essay: Mothers & Marmees & Moms, Oh My!

In other speaking events this weekend, I also participated in the exciting launch of Family Stories from the Attic at Boswell Books in Milwaukee. More on that another day, except for this charming shot of me reading from my piece, “The Blue Cardboard Box.”

Also, I was the lay-preacher at my church yesterday — talking about Teaching & PUTTS. And, more on that another day. :-) And, another charming photo:

If you’re a shy, introvert, I hope you have found or will find times and places in your life where you can grow comfortable with sharing your voice. It’s a good place to be.

PamSpeaks Too was originally published in Pam Writes on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

With Thanks to a “Terrible Son”

Three years ago I spent the month of May on Cape Cod, retreating from my daily life and working hard on two writing projects, enjoying a glorious spring along the shore, before the tourists invaded. Besides writing, I needed some time to put my perspectacles on and remember all the reasons I have to be grateful for my life. It’s easy to be grateful when walking on the tidal flats at low tide. See?

Mother’s Day hit while I was out on the Cape and I received an email from one of my sons which tickled me and led to the following post. I’m sharing it again because I feel as strongly now as I did then that thanking all the people in our lives who have mothered, nurtured, supported, and encouraged us is always important, not just on special days.

Dear Terrible Son

May 10, 2014

Dear Terrible Son,

I received your email this morning with “Terrible Son Alert” in the subject line. I was laughing before I opened it, because neither you or your brother would ever, ever be described by me as a “terrible son.”

So, you’re going camping tonight and don’t expect cell reception where you’ll be tomorrow, and you forgot to ask me for the Cape house address so there won’t be a card or a present. Egads. My life is ruined! I shall spend the day weeping and alone, NOT.

I can’t claim to 100% own the sentiments that Anne Lamott expresses in her wonderful essay, “Why I hate Mother’s Day,” but I do aspire to own them. I’m just not quite as noble as she is when she says:

“Mothering has been the richest experience of my life, but I am still opposed to Mother’s Day. It perpetuates the dangerous idea that all parents are somehow superior to non-parents. (Meanwhile, we know the worst, skeeviest, most evil people in the world are CEOs and politicians who are proud parents.)”

I agree that not all parents are superior to non-parents, but I’ve known a few non-parents who’ve made me scream internally too — especially those who love to give parenting advice.

I am more with Anne here, “But my main gripe about Mother’s Day is that it feels incomplete and imprecise. The main thing that ever helped mothers was other people mothering them; a chain of mothering that keeps the whole shebang afloat.” She goes on to talk about being who she is in spite of her mother and lists numerous folks who have supported and mothered her. Well, I agree, there are people, including my mother, who have supported and mothered me, but as Mother’s Day nears, I want to think about the others who have mothered you.

I want you and your brother to remember all the important people who contributed to who you are as adults — your kindergarten teachers, that amazing band director in middle school, Kumon instructors, saxophone teacher, piano teacher, choir director, theater directors, cross country coach, professors. I won’t remember them all, but you know who they are. Think of them and whisper a thank you to the universe. They helped me as much as you. I will always be grateful that you had the right people at the right times in your world. They each gave you things I could not. Ms. Lamott would say to acknowledge them all: “You want to give me chocolate and flowers? That would be great. I love them both. I just don’t want them out of guilt, and I don’t want them if you’re not going to give them to all the people who helped mother our children.” I always tried to impress on you and your brother the importance of thank yous. Write a thank you note to one of those teachers or coaches or directors who helped make you who you are. And know that your mother will happily enjoy chocolate or flowers any day of the year. :-) But, know what I miss the most about Mother’s Day when you guys were little? Hand made cards. Hint, hint, hint.

Much love forever and ever,

Your Mother

PS — Below is one of my favorite photos of you two when you were little. I remember taking the shot. This says Mother’s Day to me, beautiful memories of beautiful moments.

With Thanks to a “Terrible Son” was originally published in Pam Writes on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Messages from Mom

Today I’m running, with permission, a post by Mel Miskimen which ran on Christi Craig’s blog near Mother’s Day in 2015. It was a favorite of mine and I hope you’ll enjoy it too. If you’re not familiar with Christi’s blog, I highly recommend it , and  her .

Christi Craig lives in Wisconsin, working by day as a sign language interpreter and moonlighting as a writer, teacher, and editor. Her stories and essays have appeared

Officially my mother had nothing terminal. She had a heart condition that she took pills for. She didn’t have Alzheimer’s, just dementia. Just? According to my WebMD degree, I diagnosed her with Failure To Thrive — impaired physical function, malnutrition, depression, and cognitive impairment. Check. Check. Check and double check.

I hadn’t planned on having a vocal record of her decline, but . . . funny how that worked out. Prior to her hospitalization, I could count on coming home to fourteen messages on my machine, ten from her. I kept some of my mother’s voice messages and made them into a playlist on iTunes. I play them whenever I need . . . you know, something.

I listen to The Cake after a big family get-together, first thing in the morning, when I sit down to write at my computer because that’s the time she would have called and interrupted my writing mojo. It’s an uptempo number. She’s snappy. Sounds like one of those octogenarians who travel in groups and spend hours rehearsing their South Pacific number for the Senior Center Showcase.

Monday. 9:18 a.m.
Hi, Melly, this is mother . . . I just wanted to call and tell you what a great time we had yesterday–it was very special–and the cake was dee-licious! Buh Bye!

I recorded this in August for a co-mingling of my birthday and my father’s when I tackled the time-consuming Sunshine Cake recipe handed down from my grandmother, that my mother used to make but because she hadn’t the stamina to fold the egg whites into the batter, instead of being light and airy, her Sunshine Cakes were dense and stormy.

And then, a couple weeks later, I mentioned to her that I needed help putting in a zipper in my son’s very expensive, low mileage, winter jacket. I really didn’t need help, I just thought it would be something to keep her brain cells chugging along. Putting a zipper in a winter jacket in August was not high on my list of priorities. My mother had a different list and it was all about The Zipper.

Thursday. 10:42 a.m.
Hi, Melly, it’s your Mom . . . come to me–uh–come over here tomorrow and pick me up . . . I’ll show you how to do that zipper! Bye.

Friday. 5:46 p.m.
Hi, Melly, it’s your mother . . . just wondering if you got that zipper in . . . if not . . . I’ll come tomorrow . . . and help you with it. Bye.

Saturday. 12:28 p.m.
Did you get that zipper in? >sigh< Um . . . Call me back, uh . . . when you get a minute . . . Bye.

Was she sitting at her kitchen table, staring out the window, fingering her doilies, waiting, waiting, waiting for me to ring her on the zipper hotline? Why had I been avoiding her calls? Because . . . I was a teensy weensy bit annoyed. Didn’t she have anything better to do than obsess over a damn zipper? Which made me feel guilty because . . . she’s my mother, and someday she might not be here, and then I’d feel even more guilt.

A month later, following her first hospital-rehab stint — she had fallen — tests revealed a shrinking brain due to . . . they couldn’t say. All our brains were shrinking, they said. Such a comfort.

I had come over to spend the afternoon with her and when I walked into the kitchen, she was sitting on the pad of her walker, near the same table that she showed me how to bake, roll out pie dough and cut out a skirt on the bias. She looked dried up, hollow. I was afraid to give her a hug. I didn’t want to break her. The house had that smell that no amount of Glade plug-ins could cover up and that’s when I sort of knew, on a gut level that she was dying. I told her I was worried that she had given up. She assured me she was just tired. The next day she called and left a message. There was a noticeable change in the quality of her voice, a smallness, a slight hoarse vibrato, but still traces of her old self.

Monday. 10:14 a.m.
Hi Melly . . . it’s your mom . . . I’m doing much better today.
Uh . . . I got up . . . I ate my breakfast and . . . I just–I’m doing better. So . . . you don’t have to worry about me–if you were going to worry! . . . don’t worry about me. Bye. Bye.

She had given me the okay not to worry about her but . . . still, I worried about me . . . whether or not I was emotionally prepared for what would happen next.

Wednesday. 2:57 p.m.
Melly, I need your HELP! I bought some stockings for myself . . . those stretch ones, you know? and I can’t get them on my feet . . .they’re too tight . . .we bought a small . . . too small, then we bought a medium, too small, we bought a–we didn’t buy a large–but your father is so impatient, just now he said,’To hell with it! You’re not wearing them!’ So here I am . . . sitting with these things half on and half off . . . call me back . . . please?

Wow. So much packed into a few minutes. My father’s fear-based frustrations, me being her number two go-to person. Helping her get into those compression stockings was — remember that episode of Seinfeld, when Kramer needed Jerry’s help getting into skinny jeans and the more Jerry pulled, the more Kramer slid off the sofa? Yeah, like that.

Her calls dwindled. I missed coming home to her voice messages. I asked her why she didn’t call. “I don’t call?” she said. She went into the hospital right after Easter for surgery to alleviate fluid build up around her shrinking brain. And, it went well. The doctors said we shouldn’t expect a miracle.

Monday. 9:28 p.m.
Melly . . . Where IS your father?!

Boom. No, sing-songy ‘it’s me, your mother,’ no small talk. Her voice was strong. Forceful. Very commanding. Almost demanding.

He said he was coming to pick me up!

I almost start to feel bad for my father, about the dressing down she’s going to give him the next day when he comes to visit her, and then she went off an a riff that I did not expect.

I’m at the airport! Waiting! >click<

The nurses all said it was the drugs and the shock of surgery, but . . . a couple days later guess what? she took her one way flight to the after life, so . . . my opinion . . . I think she was at the airport. Waiting.

Hi, Mom! It’s Mel. Um . . . just calling to say I miss you . . . but, I get it, I know you are in a better place and all, but still . . .oh, and guess what? . . . I finally got around to putting in that zipper. It only took three years! So, come winter, your grandson will be warm. So, don’t worry . . . if you were going to worry . . . don’t worry. Bye!

About Mel Miskimen

Mel Miskimen is a regular contributor for More Magazine. She is also a contributing writer for the Huffington Post 50/50. Her break-through essay? I’m Changing My Underpants and the Economy . She’s the past recipient of the Wisconsin Regional Writers award for humor.

Mel lives in a drafty, 120 year old empty nest with her husband of 30 plus years and a black labrador named — the first dog allowed on the furniture, because “That is what happens when the kids leave.” She has written a second book —  Sit Stay Heal— a heartwarming, inspiring story of grappling with loss, finding hope and healing with the help of a badly behaved labrador. Visit her website or follow her on Twitter.

Messages from Mom was originally published in Pam Writes on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Listen Up, Speak Up

Proud to have this story, Listen Up, Speak Up, running at Invisible Illness. If you haven’t read it, I hope you will. It’s about some different — and important — ways people are trying to change attitudes about mental health issues.

Listen Up, Speak Up was originally published in Pam Writes on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Ten Things Your Kindergarten Teacher Would Have Said to Donald Trump

http://mphs1961.com/page16.htmlWe don’t lie, Donnie. Ever. Telling the truth always matters.Please remember to show some manners. Don’t let Sally (or Melania) have to follow eight steps or more behind you when we’re in the buddy system.Art is important, Donnie. Don’t throw your classmates’ crayons and paints away.Donnie, no. No one said you could throw rocks over the fence at the neighbors.No. We won’t build a higher fence. Or wall. We will work harder on being kind to our neighbors.Donnie, stop that right now. We do not touch girls without their permission. Ever. Especially not there.No, no, no. You may not talk about destroying the park outside our playground to build anything. It is a park, a precious space for everyone to enjoy. It is not yours to decide to change.Donnie! Clean up your place. Put your used papers in recycling please. What do we always say about protecting Mother Earth?Stop putting words in Sean’s mouth, Donnie. Let him speak for himself! Sean — remember our rule about always telling the truth?I’m going to have to call your parents, Donnie, about all this lying. What do you mean they won’t care? (Muttering to herself: Oh boy. This kid is going to grow up to be a HUGE hemmorrhoid on the world.)

Ten Things Your Kindergarten Teacher Would Have Said to Donald Trump was originally published in Pam Writes on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Sending Sympathy Notes

The List Grows

Reading through Family Stories from the Attic, the anthology I’ve been writing about in the last two posts (Life in Old Letters, Lingering Effects of WWII) has me thinking about letters I need to write, and haven’t been able to yet. Many of the stories in the book are inspired by letters saved and handed down. Letters from soldiers and sailors, letters from missionaries, letters between lovers. In all of them, there’s the simple lovely connection of words sharing feelings and joining author and reader across time and space. It’s heartbreaking to think of this tradition being lost as we become increasingly glued to electronic communication.

The letters I need to write are all sympathy notes. These are the hardest feelings for me to share, it seems. My must-write-them list keeps growing. Rarely am I able to write a sympathy card in the first few days of learning of someone’s death. I want to, but find I need to sit with the news for a time before I can find the words. Perhaps it’s a writing-related affliction. Or a procrastinator’s scourge?

Perhaps it’s fear. Will writing a heartfelt note pull me into revisiting my losses, my griefs, my future versions of the same? My list now begins in February and I’ve let it get too long. Friends don’t know how often I’m thinking of them in their loss as I scan and add to the list.

Note card “Autumn Birches” (c)2008, Little Fish Studios, Ellison Bay, WIThey Matter

I know too well the importance of these notes. I have been the recipient of them and they matter. And yes, for all of you who send cards promptly and sign your name and let Hallmark do the rest, those matter too, but I don’t seem capable often of doing that. Unfortunately, sometimes I’ve lost track of the cards I need/want to send and they haven’t been sent. Ever. To my shame. I know, I know, there’s an easy solution. Send a Hallmark card with my signature, right away, like normal people, and follow up when I can with a longer note.

Next month, my birthday — my 57th — arrives and I know too well that my life will be punctuated with more and more sympathy cards to write as my days on earth continue. I also know that I am thankful every day to be here — a shared feeling among cancer survivors.

Today I will write my notes and mail them. Not — today I hope to write my notes. Not — today I’ll try to write my notes. Today I will write my notes and mail them. It is time for action, for words and action.

Sending Sympathy Notes was originally published in Pam Writes on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Lingering Effects of WWII

Yesterday I posted favorite sentences from the first four pieces in the anthology Family Stories from the Attic. For more information on the book and to see those choice sentences, click here.

Today I’ll share a little about the next three pieces. Each of them carries the weight and lingering effects of World War II. Like that war, these stories touch down in varied parts of the world: New Guinea, Australia, Poland, France, Germany with American soldiers and families of survivors living stateside in Wisconsin, Missouri, Massachusetts and Florida. A slice, a small slice in forty pages of the anthology, yet it touches on individual after-effects of the war experience on these writers’ families.

In A Sailor’s Footsteps

In Julia Gimbel’s piece, “In A Sailor’s Footsteps,” she is exploring a journal her dad wrote in his retirement years, which the family discovered several years ago tucked inside a scrapbook from the war years which her mother had created. Like many WWII veterans, Julia’s father didn’t talk much about the war years. But in retirement, he spilled his thoughts and Julia realized “he was driven by the need to make a permanent record of everything he had never said out loud.” There is a poignancy that pulls us in as Julia realizes that her son is the same age her father was when Pearl Harbor happened in 1941. But her son’s circumstances, “packing his possessions and moving into his first dorm room” were quite different from her dad’s heading off to war.

Exodus Redux

Myles Hopper’s piece, “Exodus Redux,” begins soon after the end of WWII in Missouri. “In the beginning of the 1947–48 school year, I attended a Jewish parochial school with a name that took forever to say: The Rabbi H. F. Epstein Hebrew Academy.” At the time, Myles’s family lived in a six-family apartment building owned by his maternal grandparents. These same grandparents had emigrated to the U.S. from Poland in the early twentieth century, leaving their extended families behind. By 1947, it was well known that few Jews in Poland had survived the Holocaust. While Myles yearned to attend the public school he could see from the apartment, someone, most likely he surmises, his grandparents, wanted Myles and his brother to attend the parochial school, where their mornings focused on prayers, Torah study, Judaism and Hebrew. While he acknowledges the burden of his grandparents’ generation in wanting to preserve the future of Judaism and the Jewish people, Myles writes that he and his brother felt like sacrificial lambs. With courage, he never flinches from exploring his feelings of being an outsider at that school.

Tracing My Father’s Admonition

“Tracing My Father’s Admonition,” by Margaret Krell, explores the secrecy and silences that have colored the world of many children of Holocaust survivors. In a few lines that won’t leave me, Margaret writes of her father punctuating the news of telling her about the last time he saw his parents and brother with:

“And one more thing,” he said. “Don’t tell anyone you are Jewish. It’s not safe.”

So…there you have three more tidbits to tempt you to read Family Stories from the Attic from Hidden Timber Books. I am so taken with this anthology!

Available now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and at Boswell Books.

Enjoyed this piece? If you did, please share the love and click the ❤ in the left hand column under share. Thanks for stopping by.

Lingering Effects of WWII was originally published in Pam Writes on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Life in Old Letters

Family Stories — Love, Loss, Meaning, Migration, Identity

Before the election this past November, I posted about my concerns about the way then-candidate Trump said that Hillary Clinton could actually be crazy. Within that same post I mentioned I had an essay coming out in an anthology called Family Stories from the Attic. My essay is about me and the grandmother I never knew, who had mental health issues at a time when treatment options were few, and treatment of women especially, was often reprehensible. Well, the anthology is out and I have been working my way through it, piece by entrancing piece.

First of all, in full disclosure, I know both the editors, Christi Craig and Lisa Rivero, and have long admired their writing, dedication and thoughtful editing. Knowing their integrity, I have no worries that my piece was selected because we are friends. And, reading the other chosen pieces, I am honored and privileged to be among them.

The essays, creative nonfiction and poetry in Family Stories from the Attic are all inspired by family letters, objects, and archives. From the back cover: “Nearly two dozen contributors from the United States and Australia tell stories of immigration and migration, loss, discovery, secrets, questions, love, and the search for meaning and identity.”

I also happen to adore the front cover:

As I am working my way through the anthology (and finishing The Nix, by Nathan Hill and beginning Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube by Blair Braverman), I thought I would share favorite sentences from each piece as they jumped out at me. In some cases that may mean a sentence from the piece which inspired the story. Consider these sentences a sip that I hope will encourage you to want to buy the book and drink it all in.

Favorite Sentences/Family Stories from the Attic

From the moment I opened Wally’s steno notebook, in single sheet records I witnessed an America built with grit, self-reliance, and the will to work alongside nature and its inhabitants. Kristine D. Adams, “Wally’s World”

No longer am I a mistake. No longer an empty chair at family gatherings. Jo Anne Bennett, “When We Feel Invisible”

Doubts about leaving her friends in Norway, being in America, learning a new language faded as she felt Fredrik’s hand on her back, guiding her, cherishing his baby, speaking lovingly in Norwegian. Aleta Chossek, “A New Life: New York to Chicago”

Not the way she had imagined her golden years, but still in these difficult times, having everyone gathered under one roof was not a bad thing. Sally Cisna, “Come Home, Peter”

The story is she was hanging up clothes when the aches and pains crept into her body. Gloria T. DiFulvio, “If She Had Lived”

More to come, but in the meantime, if you’d like to get a copy of Family Stories from the Attic and you don’t live in Milwaukee (Book Launch is Saturday, May 13th at Boswells, 7 PM), it is available now to order from Boswells (or your independent book store), Amazon & Barnes & Noble.

And, please, please, please, if you order from Amazon, don’t forget to post a review there when you’re done! If you buy from Boswells or another seller, you can post a review on Goodreads. Many thanks.

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Thanks. :-)

Life in Old Letters was originally published in Pam Writes on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.