Letter: What Does Your Heart Say?

“Like many authors battered by the continual rejection of a manuscript,” L.M. Montgomery placed the worn novel in a hatbox where it “would languish in a freezing attic for nearly a year,” according to the “Literary Ladies Guide.”

But then the day came when she held in her hand for the very first time the first ever copy of her professionally produced book “Anne of Green Gables.”

“Well, I’ve written my book,” she reflected on that moment. “The dream dreamed years ago in that old brown desk in school has come true after years of toil and struggle and the realization is sweet – almost as sweet as the dream.”

I grabbed my handkerchief on my way to my writing desk this morning because I knew I would need it.

Last night at my seventy-fourth birthday party, all my children and grandchildren were gathered around as I opened what I had long dreamed one day I would hold in my hands.

It was the first ever, never before seen, coffee table book within which are the beautiful, original, exquisitely detailed photographic artworks of award-winning photojournalist John Simpson.

The creative artistic juxtaposition of those photographs with text was the work of likewise exceptionally talented and professional photographer – and my daughter – Christina Klas.

The editing and suggestions for changes were the combined effort of all four of my children who I fondly view as my own production company.

And the accompanying short, simple, reach-the-heart descriptive articles were mine.

The tears – upon lifting the cover of the box and seeing there my book – those tears were mine too.

Tears because my fingers are connected to my heart and if my heart is broken because I have loved much and lost much then I cannot help but write what’s on my heart.

Tears, not only because here it was, the book in my hands; tears not only because my family cared so much about my dream to produce it; but tears because the subject matter is about life, and love, and loss, themes that affect us all.

Who knows what shall become of this book, a sample book after all, just ten articles of several hundred articles already written and accompanied by Simpson’s photographs.

Perhaps one day it will be found in the waiting rooms of doctor’s offices around the country where patients await their prognosis, some of whom will, like my wife, hear that their journey has come to an end.

Perhaps one day it will be read anywhere people gather as all of us need to breathe; all of us need inspiration; all of us need to live in the moment; and all of us need to dream.

Because, after all, all of us have a heart that dreams desperately of being loved, of being married to someone who lives to love us.

Because, after all, all of us have a heart to which our fingers are connected that then sets us on a course of action.

And because all of us who dream, and who act on those dreams, who want to live the gift of time we have been given to the fullest, will find reality harsh, dreams dashed, love rejected, life lost, and the manuscript that would have told our story we will be sorely tempted to forever hide away in a hatbox in a freezing attic.

Don’t do it.

What one day will make the years of toil and struggle worth it; what one day will be sweet despite rejection and despair, love, and loss; is not, perhaps surprisingly, the realization of the dream after all, but rather sweeter still is the dream itself.

Dream.

Pursue what’s in your heart.