Authors are powerful. The stories they weave are the only stories that survive word for word in the same manner from generation to generation. They shape morals, opinions, history, and fact. All in the power of the written word. I desire to use my words to touch and teach others; to finger the strings of the human soul, pulling out the notes of anger, fear, joy, and love. There is so little coherence to our world that without the stories that weave the fabric of life into a whole, we know not how to walk on through trouble. A story can bring wholeness.

I am troubled because without my own ancestors leaving a trail of their words behind, all of their life’s stories vanish. Their lives are forgotten. There may be a stone in a graveyard with a name, but who was this man or woman? What made them laugh? What made them cry? When did they fall in love? Who was hurt when they died?

I wonder if my words will survive to my children and their children? Will they glimpse me through the letters organized on the pages I have strewn behind me thus far in my life? Will I eventually write something that will reach the greater masses; a beacon of light to the future of humanity: to light our way through the maze of life, to the love at the center of the universe? I hope.