Under the Tulip Tree

by Michelle Shocklee

I feel now that the time is come when even a woman or a child who can speak a word for freedom and humanity is bound to speak. . . . I hope every woman who can write will not be silent.

Words written more than eighty years prior, yet they resonated within me with profound clarity.

There, not far from where she’d lived in the contraband camp, Frankie was laid to rest in the shade of a tulip tree, Sam beside her.

What we believe and what we think are not static. Experiences and people leave a

mark on us and change us.

How can he—we—edit someone’s life story when we weren’t the ones who lived it?”

Having his grandchildren around worked some kind of miracle and helped him climb out of the dark pit he’d lived in for seven years. He still had a long way to go, but for the first time in a long time I saw hope in his eyes.

As a lifelong student of history, I’ve come to appreciate a simple truth: Everyone has a story to tell, and no one should be silenced.