The Loud Silence

Although, I have always loved to write, I could never find a subject I was passionate about. I had wonderful writing teachers who inspired me. I saved many of my poems and stories. Recently, while going through my old boxes, I discovered a piece I had written when I was 16 called "Black on White" . It was just a simple assignment that I had given no thought to at the time, and just happened to save. But, it has taken on a new significance.

When my youngest child went off to school, all my children were now gone during the day and the house was silent..
How could I spend this mountain of time I now had? When I found this poem, it called to me and awakened the long dead writer I had once been. A whisper of an idea spoke in my ear and suddenly, I found that there was something I had to do to help those now living only in photographs and family lore. But I don't have the patience for a long biography. How could I tell about them and make them real? How could I help them live again?

We know some of their stories, but they have been reduced to a few sentences and are just filed away as an interesting factoid in the recesses of our minds. I want to re-create these stories with the voices of those who lived them; to show their children the joys and challenges they faced. While many of them have had their lives recorded and acknowledged by their progeny, they have not been remembered. Not really. If they could speak to us what would they say?

I hope to work on inspiration. I want to help genealogists who have discovered the amazing people in their past that want to get their stories heard and remembered.  Many of them are not writers, and are uncomfortable with this aspect of family history. While they can record the story, they want it more dynamic than their abilities can afford. Although the story may be familiar, I hope to tell it in a new way that will ignite and inspire people to appreciate and love who and where they came from. Sometimes, we only remember and pass on the positive aspects of our ancestors and personalities. But it is through their flaws that we truly know them. The more information I have, the louder the whispers become.

I don't intend to find them; I want to get to know them once they have been found. Many people look for their family history,  record the vital statistics, and move on to the next ancestor in the long line of history. Interesting tidbits are filed away or forgotten. I intend to bring them out of the shadows of time, and show their light to the world that has forgotten the lessons that were so dearly learned. I want to help them share their wisdom, in their voices if possible. Although the stories I write will be works of fiction and simply based on what I could gather and infer from firsthand accounts or those who knew them, I hope to bring them to hearts of their children.

In the movie Amistad, it was said  "I will call into the past, far back to the beginning of time and beg [my ancestors] to come and help me at the judgment. I will reach back and draw them into me, and they must come, for at this moment I am the whole reason they have existed at all." It speaks to the importance of they lives they have lead for "if one can summon the spirit of our ancestors then they have never left, and the wisdom and strength they fathered and inspired would come to his aid." They long to help us through our trials and whisper silently to us. And I intend to hear them.