A Little Story Behind the Story

I entered this essay in a contest in 2003. It didn’t place, but I kept the printout that I’d faxed to the magazine, forgetting about it as life rolled on. Twenty-two years later, I came across it while searching through a box of mementos for a letter from Dad.

My heart ached as I mourned Dad’s passing a week earlier on May 27, 2025; I hoped to find some long-ago uplifting words in his handwriting, and I did. On yellowed notebook paper, I reread the words he mailed to me in college (around 1985), telling me how he missed me but looked forward to seeing me soon, and signed, “Love, Dad.” I traced the words with my finger and whispered to the air, “I love you too.” I then carefully set the note aside and kept looking through the box. When my eyes fell upon this essay, I smiled, remembering how Dad encouraged me to write even if it meant ignoring his sermons. 

The Offering

As a child, while Daddy preached, I quietly peeled open the sides of pew envelopes and added my offering of words.

I wrote in rhyme. All the time. Rhyme tamed the thoughts that ran wild in my soul. Once, suddenly overwhelmed by the largeness of the world, I wrote: “Traveling the chaotic highways, many cars pass by. Never knowing their passengers, I merely look, then sigh.” Sigh.

For a seventh grade English assignment, a worm slithered into my thoughts and onto paper as “Hermie the Wormy.” Nearly thirty years later, I cannot remember the names of some of my best friends from junior ‘high, but I cannot forget Hermie. My friends’ names did not rhyme. The worm’s did.

In high school, I went through the change, from rhyme to prose. Such freedom!

Journalism was my college major, molding me into a person who could tell who, what, when, where, and why in less than 200 words. I also discovered that words gained power when coupled with video, so I chose a career in television news. Churning out answers to the five W’s day after day, I somehow lost mine. Who was I? What was I doing with my life? Where was I headed? When would I get there? And why? Why?

I was writing for my career, but no longer writing just because. Then, I had my first child. This tiny, new person was amazing. I wrote about him, about motherhood. Just because was reborn. I quit the TV news job. Another boy and two girls followed, each inspiring their own file full of stories. Stories worth sharing, I have always believed, but wishful thinking has never been enough to make it happen.

It took more than wising upon a falling star to be published; it took writing about a sky full of falling stars. One November morning, my children and I rose before the sun to watch a *meteor shower. I wrote about it, and on a whim, sent our story to the local newspaper. They published it – me! I emailed another article. The subject line of their reply was one word, all caps: REJECTION.

I submitted another article. It ran on Christmas Day. I sent another article and another. REJECTION. Ditto. I submitted a story to a city magazine. The editor bought it. ACCEPTANCE.

I thank God and curse Him for this gift of words. Sometimes I just want to experience my life without feeling compelled to write about it. Other times, I am thankful that words allow me to catch the exclamatory bursts of light on the predawn sky while snuggling with my children under a feather blanket. I try to write every day. Sunday’s musings often still begin on the inside a pew envelope.

Writing is both my offering to God and God’s offering to me.

* For anyone who would argue that meteors are not falling stars, you are correct, but not entirely. The McDonald Observatory says that “falling stars” is an acceptable phrase to describe meteoroids, the streaks of light across the night sky caused by small bits of interplanetary rock and debris vaporizing high in Earth’s upper atmosphere. And it works in my essay.