Priscilla's World | My Memory of the Years That Have Slipped By
My Memory of the Years That Have Slipped By

I had just finished reading Bill Tammeus book about the death of his nephew Karleton when the first plane crashed into the World Trade Center in New York in 9/11. About the time I finished that book Donna Ziegenhorn sent me an email about a program on interfaith activities and the Festival of Faiths in the Kansas City area. She shared her story of writing and presenting the Hindu and The Cowboy, a one-act play she had written and performed across the Kansas City area. Her sharing of our work with the Festival of Faiths and the New York event stirred many memories within me.

My new book just came out, The Wonder of Memory and has so much of my life in it. However, I realized as I listened to Donna that I had missed writing about the Festival of Faiths. Several of us across Kansas City had worked a number of years on that process and I had met a bunch of people that really impressed me. But with this crazy year we have been living through…we haven’t been out seeing people we have known through the years.

So I spent this last year writing a lot…actually I am pleased with The Wonder of Memory mostly because I love all of the pictures I have put into it. But I am somewhat crazy about all of the pictures I have around my apartment. I don’t know if that is my age…or…who knows what.

I was trying to get said that we should all be thinking about our lives as they stretch back through the years. Whether we know how to write or not…just the process of pondering our life is a great exercise. I start this book with “The Wonder of Childhood” by saying: “Memory is a funny thing. It is a way to participate in something larger than yourself. My life journey started in Kansas. I never questioned whether the Church was right for me. Generations of my family had been “church” so I am also.”

I turn ninety years old this month…and that suddenly feels a bit older than the eighties have felt. Who knows what happens in this last bit of my life. But I realize that I have never known what was coming next through the years.