There is no other heat like the heat of an Indian summer in St. Louis.  It was the very beginning of the new school year.  On this Indian Summer September afternoon, Mother did not come as she usually did to walk us home.  My two sisters and I were all excited about being back in school.  Each of us for different reasons. We, the Mohr girls, were quickly making our way home from that first day. 

It was strange as we neared the house.  It looked quieter than usual.  Annie ran ahead of Mary and up the stairs to the kitchen door.  By the time I got into our kitchen, it was clear that today was to be like no other.  There was just shouting coming from the other room. 

Annie and I looked at each other.  Mary stepped closer to the closed kitchen door to listen.  Mother and father were going at it. We could hear the yelling. We heard father begging. The intensity grew till finally, my father left.  He walked away.  Mother shut the front door behind him, turned, and leaned against it and wept. We quickly ran to our mother and clung to her.  All of us were crying.  We found ourselves huddled on the parlor’s sofa.  The afternoon sun gave the room a strange light that only occurred at sunset.  This was a room we never gathered in as a family.  This was a room only for special occasions, and this would certainly qualify.  It would be the last day our father lived at Aberdeen Place.

What happened?

***

My family is made of Storytellers.

I am a Storyteller. I would like to tell you a story. 

A Story of a Time.

A Story of a Great City - St. Louis, Missouri.

A Story of Women.

A Story of the Roman Catholic Church. 

The Story that is The Mississippi River.

I am inspired every day by the written word,

Something I have read.

The script of a playwright, lyrics of a Song,

Lines spoken in a Television Series,

Prose, poetry, sonnets…

I remember as a young girl in school being required to read Juliet’s words in Shakespeare’s famous tragedy and being utterly transformed. I had become elevated somehow. The reading of a novel, A Woman in Time, expanded my perspective, my worldview; it was somehow made bigger, richer, and deeper. The simplicity of the Sutras, meticulously translated and handed down generation to generation - the written word of Our Buddha so that they will not be lost.

I am a Writer, who writes, so that I will not be lost.